The United States lost 467,000 jobs in June, the Labour Department reported Thursday.

The increase drove the non-farm unemployment rate up 0.1 point from May to 9.5 per cent, the department said.

"Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction."

The job loss figure is expected to continue rising through 10 per cent because unemployment lags the economy. But the losses also mean the recovery could be slower than hoped, some economists said.

With the June loss, the total number of unemployed rose to 14.7 million from 14.5 million in May.

The percentage increase was slightly less than the 0.2 per cent economists had been expecting, but the actual number of new unemployed was higher than the 363,000 forecast.

Moreover, the income numbers and the shrinkage in the average workweek in the report "are worse than the headline, and that's not going to be nice for retailers," ScotiaMcLeod adviser Andrew Pyle said.

The number of "involuntary part-time workers," people who want to work full-time but can't find jobs, was nine million in June, little changed from May. But since the recession began in December 2007, the number has risen by 4.4 million.

Among the various demographic groups separated out in the report, teenagers, at 24 per cent, and blacks, at 14.7 per cent, had the highest rates in the June report. Adult women, at 7.6 per cent, and Asians, at 8.2 per cent, were the lowest.

Since the recession started, the number of unemployed has risen by 7.2 million and the unemployment rate is up 4.6 percentage points.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the report showed the recession is slowing because it is better than the previous report.

But he sympathized with the unemployed.

"Obviously, this is little comfort to all those Americans who have lost their jobs," he said.

With files from The Associated Press and The Canadian Press