The United States Labor Department has announced today figures for the job market. Employers have slashed around 80,000 jobs in March, the most in five years. The new report by the government also put job losses in January and February at 76,000 each month, revising earlier figures. This brings the year's total to around 232,000 jobs lost in three months.

"The revisions are the real surprise in the report," said John Silvia, chief economist for Wachovia, quoted by CNN. "If we had known it was anything like that, there would not have been any debate going on about whether we were in a recession. It's pretty stark."

Construction, manufacturing, retailing, financial services and various business services were worst hit by job losses. Meanwhile, the national unemployment rate rose from 4.8 percent to 5.1, the Labor Department said. It is the highest since September 2005, when significant job losses followed the devastating blows of Gulf Coast hurricanes.

Also, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged Wednesday that the country could be heading toward a recession. Most people say that the recession is already happening.

"The numbers are pretty bad," said analyst Rudy Narvas of 4Cast quoted by BBC. "Before, there was a debate about whether we were in recession but I think this settles it. We've passed the tipping point," Narvas told BBC.