Washington - The US economy shed 598,000 jobs in January, the worst monthly loss since 1974 and a sign that the country's recession is worsening, the Labour Department said Friday.

The unemployment rate climbed to 7.6 per cent, the highest level since 1992, from 7.2 per cent in December, when companies cut 577,000 jobs. Economists had expected a rise in the jobless rate to 7.5 per cent.

About 3.6 million jobs have been shed since the start of the US recession in December 2007, the Labour Department said.

Hanoi - Panasonic Corp confirmed Friday that it was shedding jobs at its factories in Vietnam, joining a raft of companies laying off workers there as the economy slows.

Panasonic Vietnam general director Shinya Abe said the company had offered workers at its plant outside Hanoi a "voluntary resignation plan" at the end of January but did not yet know how many would accept the offer.

Tokyo  - Japan's foreign reserves dropped 19.69 billion dollars in January from the month before but remained above 1 trillion dollars, the Finance Ministry said Friday.

The reserves fell to 1.01 trillion dollars at the end of January because of declines in US Treasury bond prices and the appraisal value of Japan's euro-dominated assets, the ministry said.

Japan had 890.77 billion dollars in foreign securities as of January 31, down from 908.02 billion dollars a month earlier.

Washington  - Democratic leaders made last-ditch attempts Thursday to convince the US Senate to support an unprecedented stimulus package that President Barack Obama has said is critical to reviving the US economy.

Legislators said they expected a final vote on the package late Thursday, but the prospects of the bill's passage remained uncertain.

Hanoi - Vietnam's industrial production fell 8.6 per cent in January from the month before, media reports said Thursday, as the global economic downturn hit the country's export-dependent economy.

The drop left industrial output 4.4 per cent lower than in January 2008, according to data from the Planning and Investment Ministry.

Exports, which account for 70 per cent of Vietnam's gross domestic product (GDP), were down 24.2 per cent from the same month last year.

The sharp drop in production and exports threatened to derail the government's prediction of 5 per cent GDP growth in 2009. Vietnam's economic growth already fell from 8.5 per cent in 2007 to 6.2 per cent last year.

Frankfurt - The European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to set the stage Thursday for a rate cut at its meeting in March.

ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet has already indicated that the Frankfurt-based bank is likely to hold off on trimming borrowing costs again this week before pressing on with its rate-cutting cycle in March.

"The next important meeting is in March," said Trichet at his press conference last month after the bank delivered another 50 basis points cut. This brought the cost of money in the 16-member eurozone down to 2 per cent.

For the moment, the ECB appears keen to sit back and assess the economic impact of the 225 basis points in rate reductions it has delivered since October last year.