US unemployment at 26-year high

The pace of US job losses hit a one-year low last month but the unemployment rate jumped to a 26-year high of 9.7 per cent.

Employers cut 216,000 jobs, the smallest since August 2008, and revised job losses for June and July show 49,000 more jobs lost than previously reported. Analysts had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 225,000 in August and the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5 per cent. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the economy has shed 6.9 million jobs, officials said.