Jobless rate hits eight-year high

WASHINGTON - The nation&#39;s unemployment rate shot up to 6 percent in April - the highest point in nearly eight years - even as U.S. companies added jobs for the first time in nine months. <br> <br> The Labor Department reported Friday that payrolls grew by 43,000 during the month, a welcome sign after companies had slashed hundreds of thousands of positions to cope with last year&#39;s recession and the jolt of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. <br> <br> Still, job growth wasn&#39;t strong enough in April to take care of an increase of people - 565,000 - entering the work force during the month. That caused the unemployment rate to rise from March&#39;s 5.7 percent rate. <br> <br> April&#39;s jobless rate was the highest since August 1994, when unemployment also was at 6 percent. <br> <br> Job growth in services, normally an engine of job creation in the United States, rose by 87,000, recouping job losses that totaled 245,000 in October and November. <br> <br> After more than a year of sustained job cuts, temporary help firms added 66,000 positions in April, the third straight month of job gains. <br> <br> Economists say that&#39;s a particularly encouraging sign for job growth in general in the months ahead. Companies often hire temporary workers before they hire new full-time workers or rehire laid-off workers, they said.

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