Unemployment: 9.5%; Obama says he's 'deeply concerned'

WASHINGTON -- The nation's unemployment rolls swelled by 467,000 in June, reversing a recent trend of slowing job losses and raising questions about a widely anticipated second-half recovery.

The unemployment rate edged up only slightly, to 9.5% from 9.4% as 155,000 Americans left the work force, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said in its monthly survey. Many were likely discouraged workers who gave up their job searches, says Sung Won Sohn, economics professor at the Smith School at California State University.

Still, the jobless rate is the highest since August 1983. And the so-called underemployment rate — which includes the unemployed, people working part time even though they wanted full-time work and those who stopped looking for work— ticked up to 16.5% from 16.4%.

President Obama said Thursday he is "deeply concerned" about unemployment and conceded that too many families are worried about "whether they will be next" to suffer economically.

In a White House interview with The Associated Press, Obama said since he took office, "we have successfully stabilized the financial markets," and "started to see some stabilization on housing... But what we are still seeing is too many jobs lost."

"Many businesses are very scared," Sohn says. "They're not about to start hiring people until they see sure signs that the economic recovery is here for good."

A record 14.7 million people were out of work last month and 6.5 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007. Sohn says he expects unemployment to hit 10.8% later this year before peaking at about 11% in 2010.

After chopping nearly 700,000 jobs each month in the first quarter, the cuts slowed to 519,000 in April and 322,000 in May according to revisions announced by BLS Thursday. With many economists forecasting about 365,000 job losses last month, the unexpected rise prompted some to question the strength, if not the timing, of any economic upturn later this year.