U.S. jobs data miserable as regional factories slump

By Burton Frierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of American workers on the unemployment rolls surged to the highest in a quarter century and a regional manufacturing gauge slumped as U.S. economic misery intensified, new reports showed on Thursday.

The data was the latest in a growing body of evidence that shows the United States, like other rich nations, has probably entered one of the worst downturns in decades. Economists expect the world's leading economies to be in recession for about a year.

The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped last week to their highest in 16 years, Labour Department data showed, suggesting next month's payrolls data will add to the 1.2 million jobs already eliminated this year.

"I think this is going to be not only a deep recession, at least in the next couple of quarters, but also a long recession," said Conrad DeQuadros, senior economist at RDQ Economics in New York.

"It certainly does support the forecasts of a significant pickup in the pace of employment declines and therefore more significant declines in GDP as we get to the end of the year," DeQuadros added about the U.S. economic reports.

Worse yet, the number of workers remaining on jobless benefits, or continuing claims, were the highest since December 1982, rising to 4.012 million in the week ended November 8, the latest data available, from 3.903 million the prior week.

An index of factory conditions in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region fell to another 18-year low in November and also highlighted concerns the United States could be headed for a destructive deflationary spiral.

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank said its business activity index fell to minus 39.3 from minus 37.5 in October. Any reading below zero indicates contraction in the region's manufacturing sector.