WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers cut workers from their payrolls for the sixth straight month in June for the country's longest losing streak since 2002, while the unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent, government data on Thursday showed.
The Labor Department said 62,000 jobs were lost from nonfarm payrolls last month, bringing losses for the year so far to 438,000 as a collapse in the housing market chilled growth.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the unemployment rate to edge down to 5.4 percent. Payrolls were forecast to shed 60,000 jobs in June versus a revised 62,000 loss in May, initially estimated as a 49,000 fall.
April was also revised lower, taking combined April and May U.S. job losses 129,000, or 52,000 more than previously thought.
(Reporting by Alister Bull, editing by Joanne Morrison)
