Hopes of a quick turnaround for the US job market have been dashed by the news 467,000 people lost their jobs in June.
The larger-than-expected cull pushed the unemployment rate up 0.1 points to a fresh 26-year-high of 9.5%.
The Labor Department figures, one of the best indicators of economic momentum, came as a blow after May saw a slowing in the rate of redundancies.
Analysts had expected a smaller number of 365,000 job losses, but a higher unemployment rate of 9.6 percent.
However, the estimate for May was revised to show fewer job cuts - 322,000 instead of 345,000 - although the April figure was modified from a loss of 504,000 to 519,000 jobs.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the world's biggest economy has lost 6.5 million jobs and the jobless rate has risen 4.6 percentage points.
Employment in manufacturing fell by 136,000 over the past month, boosting the total for the recession to 1.9 million job losses.
The key services sector lost 244,000 jobs, including 21,000 in retail last month, the report showed.
All sectors showed job losses except education and health care, which gained 34,000 in June.
In a separate report on weekly jobless claims - which provides one of the most up-to-date indicators of economic sentiment - the Labor Department said the number of new claims fell by 16,000 to 614,000 in the week ending June 27.
The four-week moving average for new claims was 615,250, a decrease of 2,750 from the previous week's revised figure.
The update showed a decrease in the number of people receiving unemployment benefits by 53,000 to 6,702,000 in the week to June 20.
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