Jobs: A little less bleak

Payrolls post smallest decline since in six months, even as unemployment rises to 25-year high.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The unemployment rate hit a 25-year high in April, but there were signs of hope as the monthly job loss total fell to the lowest level in six months.

The Labor Department reported Friday that employers cut 539,000 jobs from payrolls in the month. That's an improvement from the revised reading of 699,000 that were lost in March, and the best reading since October, when the economy shed 380,000 jobs.

Still, that brings job losses since the start of 2008 to 5.7 million. And even some economists who believe that economic growth and an end to the recession are close at hand project that job losses could continue through the end of the year or into 2010.

Economists had forecast a loss of 600,000 jobs in April, but there had been signs in recent days that the job losses might not be as bad as expected. A reading on private sector employment by payroll services firm ADP showed a big drop in job losses in April, and there has been a steady decline in recent weeks in people filing for first-time unemployment benefits.