Last month, the economy took a turn for the worse.

Again.

Unemployment rates in July surged once more as 51,000 people lost their jobs, bringing total unemployment in the United States to 5.7 percent, according to a Aug. 1 statement from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And that marks the highest unemployment rate in four years.

The 1.6 million who lost their jobs in the past 12 months compose more than 18 percent of the entire unemployed population, which is now at 8.8 million.

Joining the ranks of the unemployed were teenagers – in the course of a month, unemployment rates for teens shot up 2.2 percent. Part-time employment is the lowest it’s been since the Bureau of Labor All these discouraging numbers are part of an economic slump that, according to Michael Walden, an economist and professor of agriculture and resource economics, occurs about once every eight years.

“Typically, when the economy goes into a slump, unemployment rises,” he said. During this slump, businesses are not selling as much as usual because their customers are “apprehensive about their economic future.”

But come this time in 2009, he predicts this slump will pass.

“It’ll continue probably for another year, through the mid-part of next year, before the economic clouds start to shift away and we get brighter economic skies,” he said.

Although this date coincides with the arrival of a new president with new policies, Walden said a strong economy won’t be the product of any political leader.

“People put too much weight on the influence of politics,” he said. “The economy is much, much bigger than the power of a president or Congress to move it.”

What will actually end the slump, he said, is an improvement in the private sector and in the housing market.

Until then, students still have reason to worry. Due to the high cost of living, which includes oil prices and grocery expenses, and because so many full-time workers have lost their jobs, Walden said there is an increase in the amount of unemployed persons looking for part-time jobs.

“There’s now more competition to ge these jobs,” he said. “If, overall, businesses are not hiring as much, and if just as many or more students are looking for work, businesses can be pickier.”

Mackenzie Dotson, a senior in English, knows first-hand the effect of the competition for part-time jobs. Dotson, who now has two part-time jobs, said she spent all of May and part of June looking for a second part-time job to help pay for her cost of living expenses. During that time, she e-mailed about 25 employers; two responded. In June, she began a job at University Housing that a friend told her was available. She now works about 40 hours a week to cover her bills.

“My rent is just too high,” she said. “My cost of living is way more than I can pay off with one job.”

This slump, though it affects students like Dotson who are looking for part-time work, has yet to fully hit recent college graduates, according to Leslie Rand-Pickett, a counselor at the Career Center. She said employers are still flocking to campus to recruit.

The reason for this recruitment, she said, is that employers are looking to replace senior employees who are preparing to retire. She’s seen the same trend with many companies.

“Companies, when they come in, tell us that this huge percentage of their work force is retiring within the next few years,” Rand-Pickett said. “They want to make sure everybody’s trained and replaced before everybody else is retired.”

And employers have already booked all the spots for the engineering career fair, set for Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, an indication that college recruiting is “looking relatively healthy” despite the overall slump.

Carol Schroeder, director of the Career Center, said in an interview last month that the amount of co-op employers who re-hire students enrolled in co-ops can also be used as a gauge to see whether the national economic slump has yet to hit recent graduates.

Neither the Career Center nor the co-op office has specific data to determine how many graduates who participated in the co-op program are being asked to stay on as full-time employees. However, Susan Matney, associate director of the Cooperative Education Program, said the number of employers who are participating in the co-op program has not lessened.

“There has not been a change in anything,” she said. “We still have openings available for students for the fall semester. The demand is still high from companies for getting students to co-op with them.”

Companies that have recently laid off employees and are not hiring full-time staff still participate in the program, she said, to “keep recruiting new talent for the future, when things are better for new hires.”

And students who participate in a co-op have, once they complete the program, a year of work experience under their belts and on their resumes.

“That helps them receive other offers,” she said. “It helps them make a more informed decision on which offer to accept.”

Rand-Pickett and Walden also agree that students who have quality job experience before they graduate will help them find full-time jobs upon receiving their diplomas.

“Businesses want job experience. My first job was at McDonald’s 40 years ago,” Walden said.

“Work experience is always helpful, even at a college degree. You learn things working that you don’t learn in the classroom, like coordinating, taking orders and being on time. Even the most mundane job looks good to an employer.”