The September 11th attack
Terrorist attacks push U.S. jobless claims to nine-year high

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Fallout from the terror attacks is rippling through the economy, catapulting new claims for unemployment benefits to a nine-year high.

Layoffs mounted for workers in travel and tourism last week, and economists believe the jobless picture will get worse in coming months.

Hawai'i has seen its new claims for jobless benefits soar along with the rest of the nation. Since the terrorist attacks, the state Labor Department has reported more than 10,000 new filings, most of them by workers in the tourism industry who have seen their jobs or hours cut as visitor arrivals have plummeted.

Even before the attacks, the nation's unemployment rate had risen to 4.9 percent in August from 4.5 percent, the biggest one-month jump in more than six years, as businesses eliminated 113,000 jobs.

Today, the government will release its first monthly employment report since the Sept. 11 attacks. Many economists are expecting the report will show that the jobless rate climbed to 5 percent in September and businesses slashed payrolls by at least 100,000.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com, estimated that over the next six months a net 500,000 more jobs are likely to be lost, after taking into account jobs created during the period. The unemployment rate could rise to 6 percent by year's end.

For the work week ending Sept. 29, new jobless claims soared by a seasonally adjusted 71,000 to 528,000, the Labor Department reported yesterday.

That came on top of a 64,000 increase the week before, which many analysts believe represented the first wave of layoffs coming from the Sept. 11 disaster.