It will get worse, says Obama as jobless figure soars

Published on Friday 5 December 2008 21:21

OIL prices have plummeted to a four-year low of $42 a barrel after the United States suffered more than half a million job losses in a month.

As the global economy continues to spiral downwards, analysts for Merrill Lynch predicted the price could fall as low as $25 a barrel – a figure that would threaten the viability of North Sea oil enterprises.

But the biggest bombshell yesterday was news that in the US, 533,000 people had been laid off in November – the worst employment figure in 34 years.

Barack Obama, the US president-elect, warned the economic crisis would get worse before it got better. He called the figures "a dramatic reflection of the growing economic crisis we face" and further evidence that his recovery plan, which aims to save or create 2.5 million jobs over two years, was needed.

He added: "There are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis, which has been many years in the making, and it's likely to get worse before it gets better."

Nigel Gault, chief US econ-omist at Global Insight, said: "These are horrendous num-bers. This is an economy that is in absolute freefall right now. Confidence has collapsed."

The grim news game after gloomy retail sales in November – normally a buoyant month for shops with Christmas just weeks away. November was the 11th month in a row that the US economy lost jobs.