Apr. 3--Layoffs at local law firms, hospitals, factories and call centers last month helped push the nation's unemployment rate to 8.5 percent in March, the highest since late 1983.

Employers eliminated 663,000 jobs, bringing to 5.1 million the total number of jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007, the U.S. Labor Department reported this morning.

"The economy is shifting to permanently lower levels of production and employment, as the recession nears [turning] into a depression," said University of Maryland professor Peter Morici.

"Lacking confidence that the demand for what Americans make and sell will recover significantly, anytime soon, businesses are girding for the long siege -- slashing employment . . . and hunkering down. They are preparing for a depression and the eclipse of American leadership," he said.

The numbers, as bad as they are, mask the real toll that the economy is taking upon workers. Add in the number of people forced to take part-time jobs because they couldn't get full-time work, and those who want jobs but are too discouraged to look, and the unemployment rate jumps to 15.6 percent.

The statistics worry such college graduates as Robel Andemicael, 23, of Carneys Point, N.J., who attended a career fair at Rutgers University in Camden last week.

He graduated in January with an accounting degree and never thought he'd have a problem getting a job. "I thought there would always be a need for them," he said, plaintively. Now he's back at home, living with his parents.

The number of unemployed people climbed to 13.2 million in March. In addition, the number of people forced to work part time for "economic reasons" rose by 423,000, to nine million.

The average workweek in March dropped to 33.2 hours, a new record low, according to the federal data.

Local unemployment figures are usually behind by about a month.

This morning, the U.S. Labor Department reported that, in February, employment fell by 67,400 over the year in the greater Philadelphia area, stretching south to Cecil County, Maryland, and north to Burlington, Bucks and Montgomery Counties.

That breaks down to 24,200 jobs lost -- year over year -- in the four Pennsylvania suburban counties, 9,400 in the city, and 20,800 in the three nearby Jersey counties, and 13,000 jobs in the rest of the area, including Wilmington. The unemployment rate in the region as a whole was 8 percent in February.

Looking forward, economists expect monthly job losses continuing for most -- if not all -- of this year.