The U.S. Labor Department said today that payrolls shrank by 80,000 in March, marking the third consecutive month of job losses and boosting the unemployment rate to 5.1 percent, its highest level since September 2005, Bloomberg reported.

Economists had projected payrolls would fall by 50,000 following a previously reported 63,000 drop in February, according to the median of 79 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. However, revisions subtracted 67,000 jobs from the originally reported figures for January and February, leaving February’s final job-loss number at 76,000.

The last time the economy lost jobs for at least three consecutive months coincided with the start of the Iraq War in 2003.

Factory payrolls shrank by 48,000 workers, the biggest decrease since July 2003, the department said. The drop included a loss of 24,000 jobs in the auto manufacturing and parts industries, which the government said “largely” reflected the effects of a strike at a supplier for General Motors Corp. Economists had forecast a decline of 35,000 in manufacturing jobs.

Builders eliminated 51,000 jobs after a decline of 37,000 in February.

Service industries, which include banks, insurance companies, restaurants and retailers, added 13,000 workers last month after an increase of 6,000 in February, the report said. Retailers’ payrolls decreased by 12,400 after dropping by 46,700 in February.

Payrolls at financial firms decreased by 5,000 jobs, after declining by 11,000 the prior month. Job losses in financial markets are mounting following the collapse in subprime lending. Wall Street banks hit by mortgage losses and writedowns have cut more than 34,000 jobs in the past nine months, the most since the dot-com boom fizzled in 2001, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.