by Laura Conaway

With 663,000 jobs lost in March, U.S. unemployment hit 8.5 percent. We're up to 5.1 million layoffs since the recession began in December 2007, nearly two-thirds of them in the last five months. "In March, job losses were large and widespread across the major industry sectors," writes the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The category of people out of work for 15 weeks or longer continued its steady rise, to 3.7 percent.The category of U-6 — which includes standard layoffs plus workers who've given up looking, plus everyone who's had to settle for part-time work — checked in at 15.6.

Bonus: NPR's Portraits of the Unemployed