US job losses, falling GDP ahead: White House adviser

White House economic adviser Christina Romer said on Tuesday that the United States will experience continued job losses and a falling gross domestic product for several more months. "We know the economy's still sick. We know we've got several more months of job loss, for example. We know that the numbers on GDP are almost surely going to be very bad for this quarter and next," Romer, the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said on NBC's "The Today Show."
The US economy lost 663,000 jobs last month, driving the unemployment rate to a 25-year high of 8.5 percent. Economists polled by Reuters expect the unemployment rate to rise to 9.8 percent a year from now. The economy shrank at an annual rate of 6.3 percent in the last quarter of 2008, the steepest decline since the first quarter of 1982. Economists polled by Reuters expect GDP to contract by 5.0 percent in the first quarter of 2009 and 2 percent in the second quarter before edging into positive growth toward the end of the year.