High unemployment is undermining the US recovery The US economy shed another 54,000 jobs in August, the third month in a row that jobs have been lost, official figures have shown.
The private sector created 67,000 jobs, the Labor Department said, more than analysts had been expecting.
As a result of the overall fall in job numbers, the unemployment rate rose to 9.6%, from 9.5% in July.
Many analysts are concerned that high unemployment is undermining the US economic recovery.
The overall loss of jobs was because of a fall in government employment.
Government jobs fell by 121,000, largely due to the loss of 114,000 temporary employees who had been taken on to compile the US census but finished their work in August.
A drop in government employment had been expected because of the census, but analysts had expected a smaller rise in the number of private sector jobs.
Employment in the healthcare sector rose by 28,000, while the construction and mining sectors also saw healthy gains.
However, manufacturing employment fell by 27,000.
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