Fewer jobs lost in May than feared

May's unemployment numbers are in, and they're not good. But they aren't catastrophic either. The Department of Labor reports that 345,000 Americans lost their jobs in May, bringing the total number of jobs lost in this recession to roughly 6 million. That brings the overall unemployment rate to 9.4 percent, the highest since 1983. That's the bad news.

But there is a silver lining in this dark cloud. News sources report that economists expected 545,000 Americans to lose their jobs. And May saw the fewest jobs lost in a month since September. Some say that's a sign the economy is no longer in free fall, but in a less extreme decline.