663,000 Jobs Lost in March

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline sharply in March (-663,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.1 to 8.5 percent. [...] Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.1 million jobs have been lost, with almost two-thirds (3.3 million) of the decrease occurring in the last 5 months.  In March, job losses were large and widespread across the major industry sectors.