WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - American workers were hammered again in March with large job losses, pushing the total number of jobs lost since the recession began to 5.1 million, the Labor Department reported Friday.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls fell by 663,000 in March, close to expectations, while the unemployment rate jumped to a 26-year high 8.5% from 8.1%, as expected.

"This recession is far from over," wrote David Rosenberg and Sheryl King, economists for Bank of America's Merrill Lynch.

"There is nothing in this report that points to economic recovery," said economists at RDQ Economics.

Details of the report confirm that the U.S. economy likely contracted violently again in the first quarter. Economists believe gross domestic product likely fell at a 5.5% annual pace after a 6.3% decline in the last three months of 2008.

However, the dismal employment report also comes just as some "green shoots" of incipient growth have surfaced in more forward-looking economic indicators, such as consumer spending, building permits, factory orders, stock prices and consumer expectations.

The labor market hasn't yet shown any signs of improvement. Leading employment indicators -- such as jobless claims or the number of temporary workers -- have worsened in recent months.

Typically, payrolls are considered a coincident indicator of the economy, while the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator, turning up after everything else improves.

"It appears that the jobless rate will continue to rise at a rapid clip over the next few months and should breach 10% sometime in the second half of 2009," wrote David Greenlaw and Ted Wieseman, economists at Morgan Stanley.

Details of the report were almost universally grim.

Payrolls in previous months were revised lower by a total of 86,000. January's revised job loss of 741,000 was the worst since 1949. In February, 651,000 jobs were lost. Read the full government report.

In the past six months, 3.7 million jobs have been destroyed, or 2.7% of payrolls, the second-largest percentage loss in 50 years.

Total hours worked in the economy fell by 1%. The average workweek fell by 6 minutes to a record-low 33.2 hours.

"Businesses are girding for a long siege -- slashing employment and dividends," wrote Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland. "They are preparing for a depression and the eclipse of American leadership."

Job losses were widespread across industries in March. Among major sectors, only health care added jobs, but the increase of 14,000 was about half the average gain over the past six months.

According to a survey of hundreds of thousands of work sites, goods-producing industries shed 305,000 jobs, and the services industries cut 358,000. Of 271 industries, just 22% were hiring in March.

Manufacturing industries cut 126,000 workers. Hours worked in manufacturing fell by 2.1%. Construction cut 161,000 jobs. The unemployment rate for construction workers rose to 22.3%.

In the services, professional and business services cut 133,000 jobs, including 72,000 temp jobs. Retail companies cut 48,000 jobs. Financial services cut 43,000 jobs. Transportation industries lost 34,000.

The separate survey of households showed employment dropped by 861,000, with unemployment rising by 694,000 to 13.2 million. The employment-population ratio dropped to 59.9%, the lowest rate since 1985.

A separate gauge of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and workers who can find only part-time work rose to a record 15.6%, with data reached back to 1994.

The number of workers who want full-time work but can only find part-time jobs rose by 423,000 to 9 million in March. Since the recession began, involuntary part-time workers have increased by 4.4 million.

About a quarter of the 13.2 million officially unemployed have been out of work longer than six months, the highest percentage since 1983.