Astounding

Yesterday the Labor Department reported that employers cut 651,000 jobs in February, pushing the unemployment rate to 8.1%.

The service industry cut 375,000 jobs (after just shedding 276,000 in January). Financial companies cut 44,000 jobs. Leisure and hospitality firms lost 33,000 positions.

The few areas that were spared included education, health care, and government.

Friday afternoon in Ohio, President Obama called the 4.4 million job losses in the last 14 months "astounding". He went on to say that this this cycle of job losses is "not the future I accept for the United States."

A total of 12.5 million workers are now classified as unemployed. In addition, the number of people forced to work part time for "economic reasons" rose from 787,000 to 8.6 million.

Were you "astounded" by Fridays Department of Labor report for February?

What sort of future do you see for the United States?