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September 5, 2003 5:00 PM, EDT

The U.S. economy lost a total of 93,000 jobs in August as the manufacturing sector shed another 44,000 positions, but the unemployment rate dipped to 6.1% as more discouraged workers dropped out of the labor force, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Payrolls fell after a revised 49,000 drop in July. The jobless rate fell from 6.2% in July and 6.4% in June, the highest since 1994. Analysts had expected payrolls to rise by 20,000, Bloomberg reported.

Economists said the United States needs to start generating jobs to sustain consumer spending or it could hurt the economic recovery, Bloomberg said.

Manufacturing, one of trucking's largest and most important customers, has shed about 2.7 million jobs over the past 37 months. The factory workweek was unchanged at 40.1 hours while overtime rose by 0.1 hours to 4.1 hours.

Employment in service-producing industries, a category that includes banks, temporary-help services and government agencies, declined by 67,000.

Average weekly hours worked for all employees was unchanged at 33.6 hours.

Labor identified 503,000 discouraged workers last month, compared with 378,000 in August 2002.

The report also noted that the Aug. 14 blackout, which hit the Northeast United States during the survey week, probably had little impact on the numbers.

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