INSTANT VIEW: U.S. nonfarm payrolls fall 651,000 in February

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. employers axed 651,000 jobs in February, pushing the unemployment rate to its highest in 25 years, as companies buckled under the strain of a recession that is showing no signs of ending, according to a government report.

KEY POINTS: * While that figure was near economists' expectations for a 648,000 drop in non-farm payrolls, January and December job losses were revised sharply higher. * The Labor Department on Friday said the unemployment rate surged to 8.1 percent in February, the highest level since December 1983. That was above market forecasts for a rise to 7.9 from January's 7.6 percent. * January's job cuts were revised to show a steep decline of 655,000, while December's payrolls losses were adjusted to 681,000, the deepest since October 1949. * Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the economy has purged 4.4 million jobs, with more than half occurring in the last 4 months.

COMMENTS:

RICHARD YAMARONE, CHIEF ECONOMIST, ARGUS RESEARCH, NEW YORK:

"The bottom line is that the economy is in a tailspin, businesses are shedding workers at breakneck pace and there's no reason to expect that to change. A million job losses a month have moved from possible to probable."

DANIEL NORTH, CHIEF ECONOMIST, EULER HERMES ACI, OWINGS MILL, MARYLAND:

"There is no surprise on the headline, but the revisions were dramatic on the downside. It's hard to catch a break on the economic data."

"I think we could hit an employment rate of 10 percent by the end of this year. The employment picture will deteriorate further even we though we could be out the recession in the second half of the year."

"There are very few bright spots with the exception of the government."

CARY LEAHEY, ECONOMIST, DECISION ECONOMICS, NEW YORK:

"The bond market was worried about a death spiral where jobs could be down a million or more, consistent with the kinds of declines you saw in the 1974-75 downturn. This report is terrible, but it doesn't suggest that pressures on firms have intensified. But it's still terrible everywhere you look; there were big losses in manufacturing, construction, and in the service sector. The only positive number is in education and health which is the last, most recession resilient industry.

"The good news on inflation is bad news for workers in that you are seeing a significant slowing in wage gains which have already fallen from a 3.9 percent year-over-year gain in December to 3.6 percent year-over-year change in February. We're seeing a similar movement in the core inflation rate which has decelerated more than I would have suspected.

"The scariest number in the report is the jump in the unemployment rate from 7.6 percent to 8.1 percent. It was 7.2 percent in December and in July 2008 the unemployment rate was 5.8 percent."

ADDISON ARMSTRONG, DIRECTOR OF MARKET RESEARCH, TRADITION ENERGY, STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT:

"It doesn't look like crude market is reacting at all, perhaps because the numbers, while bad, were in line with expectations so with the dollar under some pressure it looks like crude may continue to be supported."

NIGEL GAULT, CHIEF U.S. ECONOMIST, GLOBAL INSIGHT, LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS: