US unemployment soared to 8.5 per cent last month, its highest level since 1983, as the recession savaged the labour force, official figures revealed yesterday.

The latest non-farm payrolls data showed the American economy lost another 663,000 jobs in March, taking the total amount of jobs lost in the first three months of this year to more than 2m. In all, more than 5m jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007, almost two-thirds of them in the past five months.