With continued strain to employers and employees alike, the current global economic recession has claimed another 651,000 jobs in February. This brings the national unemployment rate to a 25-year high of 8.1%, according to government data released this week.

In addition to the already devistating February job loss figures, a combined 161,000 more jobs were lost in the months of January and December.

January's job losses were revised to show an even steeper decline of 655,000 workers, while December's payrolls losses were adjusted to 681,000, the deepest losses seen 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.

The U.S. unemployment rate hit has a 25-year high of 8.1 percent in February as employers buckling under the strain of a recession that shows no sign of ending axed 651,000 jobs, government data showed on Friday.

Job losses were across the board with only government and health services actually adding jobs, economists' forecast werent far off with a predicted 648,000 drop in employment for February.

The manufacturing sector lost an additional 168,000 jobs in February, after eliminating 257,000 positions the previous month. Construction didn't fair much better with a total loss of 104,000 jobs in February, compared to 118,000 in January.

The service-providing industry faired the worst with a staggering 375,000 jobs lost, a large increase from January's 276,000.

Many companies are now struggling with falling revenues and tighter profit margins and are forced to slash jobs in huge numbers, the result is households continuing to scale back spending creating a vicious cycle for the already withering U.S. economy.

Data showed on showed non-farm productivity, a measure of output per worker hour, fell at a 0.4 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, indicating that the previous steps and job cuts by companies were insufficient and more will be required to match the slumping demand.

While the U.S. government's $787 billion stimulus package will try to break the economy's alarming downward spiral, it's success depends on stabilizing the fractured financial system and collapsed housing market.