WASHINGTON, July 3: The world’s biggest economy lost jobs for a sixth straight month in June as US employers shed 62,000 nonfarm jobs amid a lingering slowdown, a Labour Department report showed on Thursday.

The unemployment rate held steady last month at 5.5 per cent.

The volume of job losses was slightly worse than the markets had expected, as most economists had predicted that 60,000 posts were cut in June.

“Unemployment is still on a rising trend, payrolls are falling, and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel here, so the tax rebates may have pushed up consumer spending, but it doesn’t seem to have improved the labour market yet,” said Ian Morris, chief US economist at HSBC North America.

Employers started laying off substantial numbers of workers in January following several years of solid employment gains that were boosted by a booming housing market and confident consumers.

But the job picture has changed dramatically this year amid a lingering housing market slump, a credit squeeze, a sharp downturn on Wall Street and rocketing oil prices.—AFP