The US lost 697,000 jobs last month, according to a national employment report published Wednesday by payroll giant Automatic Data Processing Inc. and consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers.

The Dow Jones Newswires survey forecasted around 630,000 jobs lost making the nearly 700,000 jobs lost an uncomforting reality. The job losses in January were revised to 614,000 jobs lost, compared to initial figures of 522,000.

The gloomy reality doesn’t end there, TrimTabs Investment Research said it estimated that the U.S. economy lost 778,000 jobs in February. If comes April figures are revised upwards again, the real job losses could start nearing 1,000,000.

The first three months of 2009, saw over 2,000,000 Americans lose their jobs. If the trend continues like this then 2009 could see a total loss of 8,000,000 jobs.