Data from the United States Labor Department says that the unemployment rate in the U.S. has reached its highest level in over 25 years, namely 9.4%.

The job loss rate, however, was only 345,000, which is the lowest monthly job loss rate since September of last year. Analysts had predicted that the loss could be as high as 525,000.

The news suggests that the US economy may be improving, as the job loss rate, which peaked at 741,000 jobs this January, has started to ease.  Economic analysts are holding out hope that the the United States' financial crisis may be turning the bend, and that a month of growth might be nearing the horizon.

"Even as we see things start to stabilize and hopefully grow again, we do know that unemployment tends to lag, and so that the unemployment rate is going to be high and probably stay high for a while, precisely because that is sort of the normal pattern as we come out of recession," said Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors and former a professor of economics at UC Berkeley.

Since the recession officially started in December 2007, the American economy has shed over six million jobs, with 14.5 million residents now unemployed.

Content courtesy of Wikinews.