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Unemployment rates rose last month in more than half of the nation’s largest metro areas, driven higher by weak private-sector hiring and natural disasters.

The unemployment rate increased in 210 metro areas in May, the Labor Department said Wednesday. It fell in 131 cities and remained unchanged in 37. That’s a sharp reversal from April, when unemployment rates dropped in more than 90 percent of metro areas.

Nationwide, the unemployment rate ticked up in May to 9.1 percent and employers added just 54,000 net jobs. Employers added an average of 220,000 jobs per month in the previous three months.

Tornadoes and flooding shut some companies down in the South in late April and May. And a parts shortage stemming from the March 11 earthquake in Japan affected U.S. auto production. The metro employment data isn’t seasonally adjusted and as a result can be volatile from month to month.

One of the biggest increases was in Tuscaloosa, Ala., which was struck a deadly tornado that killed 41 people in late April. The unemployment rate there rose from 8.1 percent in April to 9.3 percent in May.

Toyota, Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and Chrysler were all forced to shut down some or all of their North American factories because of the parts shortage. At least 13 metro areas in South Carolina and Louisiana, where many factories are located, saw significant gains in their unemployment rates. Detroit, Ann Arbor and Battle Creek, Mich., also saw big increases.

The sharpest increase in unemployment was in Yuma Ariz. The unemployment rate there rose from 25.3 percent in April to 27.9 percent in May. Competition from farmers in neighboring Mexico has left some cotton, wheat and lettuce growers out of work. Agriculture drives about 40 percent of Yuma’s economy.

Many of the areas with the steepest declines are tourist destinations. Hotels and tourist attractions add workers for the summer season. Ocean City, N.J., reported the sharpest decline. The unemployment there fell from 13.3 percent in April to 11.6 percent in May.

Other steep drops were in three California metro areas: Madera-Chowchilla, Santa Cruz-Watsonville and Salinas. All three cities are big farming communities that demand more seasonal workers at this time of year.

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Nike Inc.’s fourth-quarter net profit rose 14 percent to beat expectations as the company’s sales improved around the globe.

The world’s largest athletic shoe company reported Monday that it earned $594 million, or $1.24 per share, for the quarter. That’s up from the $522 million, or $1.06 per share, it earned in the same quarter last year.

Nike’s total revenue rose 14 percent to $5.77 billion

The results handily beat the $1.16 per share on revenue of $5.53 that analysts polled by FactSet were anticipating. The news sent shares of the company, based in Beaverton, Ore., soaring in after-hours trading.

Nike had warned investors that higher costs would cut into its profit margins. The company, like many of its peers, is dealing with higher costs for materials, labor and freight.

The company was able to make up for the rising costs with higher sales volume. Revenue improved in every market except Japan during the quarter.

“We delivered exceptional results in extraordinary times,” Mark Parker, Nike’s CEO said.

For the full year, Nike earned $2.13 billion, or $4.39per share, compared with $1.9 billion, or $3.86 per share, for the prior year.

Shares of Nike jumped $3.15, nearly 4 percent, to $81.62 in after-hours trading.

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In an effort to modernize the Illinois electric grid, state legislators approved a controversial bill last month to jump-start more than $3 billion of investment by the two largest utilities.

Led by Chicago-based ComEd, the utilities lobbied hard for the ’smart grid” measure, which would jolt the state’s electric distribution network into the 21st century and impose sweeping regulatory changes. Environmental groups have embraced the measure. Consumer advocates have condemned parts of it as a ploy to boost profit. Gov. Pat Quinn has vowed to veto it.

Regardless of how the drama plays out in Illinois, there’s no rush to follow suit on the other side of the Mississippi River. As with electric deregulation a decade ago, the Missouri utility industry would rather watch and wait. Regulators, utility executives and consumer advocates in Missouri see peril in rushing to spend billions of dollars on new technology that may not pay immediate dividends.

“Everybody agrees we’re using way-old technology and older infrastructure, and we have to move toward upgrading and updating our electrical grid,” said Missouri Public Service Commission Chairman Kevin Gunn. But “this is the perfect example where the Show-Me state motto is the right way to go.”

The term smart grid generally refers to technological upgrades designed to improve reliability and efficiency of the nation’s power grid. Most attention has focused on new digital meters, but other infrastructure aims to minimize outages, allow for increased use of renewable energy and allow consumers to buy cheaper power during off-peak hours.

“This is a major transformation of the power grid that’s going to take a numbers of years, it’s going to occur in stages, piece by piece,” said Peter Fox-Penner, a principal at the consulting firm Brattle Group.

national backlash

Across the country, smart grid projects, especially those involving new digital smart meters, have sparked a backlash. In Texas, regulators were asked to investigate the accuracy of the new meters. In San Francisco, customers are worried about electromagnetic radiation. A few California cities have declared moratoriums on the new meters. Privacy advocates worry about what utilities will do with the data they collect on consumer energy use.

All of this provided fodder for discussion last summer as the Missouri PSC held a smart grid workshop with representatives from utilities, the Energy Department and smart grid vendors. Regulators and utilities continue to closely watch demonstration projects in Fulton and Kansas City that are paid for partly with stimulus grants.

In Illinois, it’s the debate over the regulatory framework being proposed by utilities that’s raising second thoughts payday loans in one hour. David Kolata, executive director at Citizens Utility Board, a Chicago-based utility watchdog, said the group backs the bill’s smart grid provisions. What it objects to are more sweeping changes in the legislation that could expose consumers to higher rates.

“It’s increasingly clear that we’re not going to build our way out of future energy issues” by adding new power plants, he said. “But there cannot be a blank check” for utilities.

Whatever the cost, the benefits of a smart grid could be enormous. Some say it could do for the nation’s patchwork electric grid what the Interstate highway system did for car travel, and revolutionize energy use the way the Internet changed the flow of information.

Today’s grid is a giant one-way road where electricity is pushed from a few large generating plants to millions of customers. Utilities charge the same rate for every kilowatt-hour, even though electricity costs vary widely throughout the day. And consumers have little idea how much power they’re using, and so they have little incentive to use less at peak times when electricity prices are high.

The smart grid would make better use of intermittent power sources such as windmills and solar arrays. New meters could make it possible for utilities to charge different rates for electricity at different times of the day, so consumers can run the dishwasher or clothes drier at night to save money. And new smart thermostats and appliances would be able to automatically adjust power use in response to changing prices.

Such improvements would help utilities avoid building expensive new power plants that run only a few hours on hot summer afternoons to help meet peak demand. They would improve air quality and cut down greenhouse gas emissions.

barriers to entry

But getting from here to there won’t be easy or cheap. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates implementation of a nationwide smart grid will require investment of as much as $476 billion.

Advancing the smart grid also requires consumers to buy in. And it has been a tough sell so far. Earlier this month, Kansas City-based Black & Veatch released results of an industry survey showing the main impediment to smart grid implementation is a lack of customer interest and knowledge.

Much of the controversy has focused on the new digital meters. Some consumer advocates, like John Coffman, an attorney for the Consumers Council of Missouri and AARP, worry the devices will prove too expensive and need replacement too quickly. Coffman also worries it could make it too easy for utilities to disconnect customers who fall behind on bills.

For now, the new meters aren’t in Ameren Missouri’s plans. The cost of smart meters

The United States and other nations that depend on oil imports will release and sell 60 million barrels of crude from emergency stocks in an effort to ease the strain of high oil prices on the global economy.

The release by the International Energy Agency, a group of more than two dozen countries, covers only what the world uses roughly every 16 hours. But it was enough to send oil prices lower, at least for the moment.

In addition to helping the struggling economies of the U.S. and Europe, analysts said the move was meant as a rebuke to OPEC, which has refused to increase oil production to bring down prices.

It will be the largest sale of crude ever from world strategic reserves and only the third since the IEA was formed in 1974 after the Arab oil embargo. The IEA released oil in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina and in 1990 and 1991 after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Half the oil will come from reserves in the U.S. Refiners who turn crude into gasoline will be able to bid on the extra oil and have it shipped to them from the salt caverns along the Gulf Coast where it is stored.

The IEA said high oil demand and shortfalls of oil production caused by unrest in the Middle East and North Africa threatened to “undermine the fragile global economic recovery.”

The uprising in Libya has taken 1.5 million barrels of oil per day off of the market _ half a million barrels less than will be released each day by the IEA for 30 days.

The price of oil rose to nearly $114 per barrel in at the end of April, the highest since the summer of 2008, has fallen 20 percent since then to about $91 a barrel on Thursday. Analysts questioned how much relief the move would provide the economy, and for how long.

One analyst, Andrew Lipow, said the timing of the announcement, a day after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered a negative outlook on the economy, suggests that industrialized countries are grasping for solutions. He said Americans should expect the price of gasoline to fall, but not dramatically, in coming weeks.

“Fifteen or 20 cents a gallon of relief is not enough to make people feel good about their job prospects or losses on the stock market or our general economic slowdown,” he said.

The IEA and the White House said they were acting to increase the supply of oil available during the peak summer driving season.

“We are taking this action in response to the ongoing loss of crude oil due to supply disruptions in Libya and other countries and their impact on the global economic recovery,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said.

Gas prices have already fallen for 20 days in a row. They were down another penny Wednesday, to a nationwide average of $3.61 per gallon, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report. That’s about 21 cents lower than a month ago. Gas prices peaked this year at a national average of $3.98 per gallon in early May.

The timing of the release brought criticism from business groups and Republican lawmakers, who accused President Barack Obama of playing politics with the country’s oil reserves, which are intended to address emergencies.

The amount of oil to be released, 2 million barrels per day, represents 2.2 percent of daily global oil demand. The 60 million barrels to be released over the span of a month is less than one day’s demand, about 89 million barrels.

The IEA left open the possibility that it could continue the program after a month.

The IEA’s move comes two weeks after OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, decided during a tense meeting not to increase oil production to meet rising demand. OPEC is made up primarily of Middle Eastern and North African nations.

OPEC countries are divided over whether to increase supply. Iran and Venezuela want to keep production stable in hopes of keeping prices _ and revenue _ high. Saudi Arabia wants to increase production, fearing that high oil prices will hurt the global economy and reduce oil demand over the long term.

The head of the IEA, Nobuo Tanaka, expressed disappointment about OPEC’s decision after that meeting No teletrack payday loans. At a news conference Thursday in Paris, he said the IEA’s action would “contribute to ensuring that adequate supplies are available to the global market.”

Kevin Book, an analyst at Clearview Energy Partners, said the move was the first time the IEA has used its reserves as an offensive weapon “to send an unforgettable message to OPEC.”

The reserves, he said, have always acted as a shield. “Now we are using it to bludgeon prices globally. This is the first time we’ve used our shield as a club.”

In addition, Book said, it sends a signal to oil investors that governments will go to great lengths to fight high oil prices. These oil investors, including banks, mutual funds and pension funds, buy contracts for oil in hopes the price will go up, but they don’t actually use the oil. Critics have said these investors, derided as speculators, have helped push oil prices far higher than they would otherwise be.

“Part of the reason to do this is to make anyone on the other side of oil consumers, whether it is speculators or oil cartels, worried that it will happen again,” Book said.

Oil finished trading at $95.41 on Wednesday just before Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the economy may be in bigger trouble than previously thought. Prices dropped to about $94 overnight and then fell as low as $89 per barrel after the IEA announcement. Oil finished trading Thursday at $91.02.

Worldwide oil demand is at record levels because the recovering economies of the West and the surging economies of Asia are burning more gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

The unrest in the Middle East this spring cut into supply. Those two factors drove prices higher, raising costs for shippers, travelers and commuters and leaving people less money to spend on clothes, entertainment and travel.

The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 1.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, down from 3.1 percent in the previous quarter, in part as a result of high gasoline prices.

Oil prices fell later in the spring, though, as the U.S. economy appeared to slow and Greece’s financial crisis threatened to spread to the rest of Europe. Reports that Saudi Arabia would increase production in defiance of OPEC helped send prices lower in recent days. It’s unclear whether Saudi Arabia has begun to do so, or still might.

Also, oil supplies in the U.S. are among their highest levels ever, a result in part of rising North American production and less consumption.

Analysts also said that while the IEA move will lower oil prices in the short term, it also reveals major concerns about the ability of oil producers to meet growing world demand in the future. If they can’t, oil prices will rise dramatically.

Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group, said oil would have to drop below $80 a barrel to have much economic impact on the economy. He said he doesn’t think the 60 million barrels is enough to do that.

“The argument is, if we can lower oil prices that would be a major tax cut,” Baumohl said. “The logic is fine. Whether it can successfully be carried out is the question. And I don’t think it can.”

IEA members are required to hold in reserve the equivalent of what they would import in 90 days, though countries collectively now hold 146 days’ supply.

The U.S. stocks, called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, hold 727 million barrels. The reserve has never been fuller. It held 707 million barrels before the U.S. last tapped the reserve in 2008 in response to supply disruptions caused by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

The IEA decision will free about 30 million barrels in the United States. Europe will release 18 million barrels and industrialized countries in Asia 12 million.

For U.S. refiners, bidding for the oil now held in reserve will mean having to import less from abroad. The 1 million barrels per day to be released is about 20 percent of what Gulf Coast refiners import.

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British Prime Minister David Cameron insists the NATO-led air campaign in Libya still has strong support, despite recent criticism.

Cameron told lawmakers in Parliament on Wednesday that the coalition involved in the mission is “holding strong” and increasing the pressure on Moammar Gadhafi to quit power.

Cameron’s comments follow concern from the outgoing head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, over civilian casualties and questions from some British military chiefs about the impact on stretched resources.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has called for a pause in the campaign to allow access for humanitarian aid.

Cameron’s office said any temporary cease-fire must not allow Gadhafi’s forces to regroup and launch new offensives.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) _ NATO warplanes resumed daytime strikes on targets in the Libyan capital Wednesday as alliance member Italy called for the “immediate suspension” of hostilities in the North African nation.

At least two explosions shook Tripoli before noon as fighter jets soared overhead. It wasn’t immediately clear what had been hit or if there were casualties.

In Rome, the Italian foreign minister called for a halt in fighting so aid corridors could be set up.

Franco Frattini said “the humanitarian end of military operations is essential to allow for immediate aid,” including in areas around Tripoli and the rebel stronghold of Misrata.

Frattini also expressed concern over civilian casualties, referring to “dramatic errors” in the bombing campaign.

“With regard to NATO, it is opportune to ask for more detailed information on results” in the attacks, he said in comments to a parliamentary commission that were carried by Italian news agencies.

Italy is Libya’s former colonial ruler and continues to maintain strong commercial ties to the country free credit report and score.

NATO’s daily airstrikes are coming under increased criticism by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s government, which accuses the alliance of targeting civilians.

NATO acknowledged it may have struck a residential building and caused civilian casualties in Tripoli earlier this week. It also hammered a compound belonging to a close Gadhafi associate and killed what Libya says was 15 civilians, including at least three children. NATO said that target was a “command and control” center.

A coalition including France, Britain and the United States began striking Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s forces under a United Nations resolution to protect civilians on March 19. NATO assumed control of the air campaign over Libya on March 31. It’s joined by a number of Arab allies.

Rebels fighting Gadhafi’s forces have taken over much of the eastern half of the country. They also control pockets in the west, including the vital port city of Misrata, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) from Tripoli.

Rebel forces facing barrages of rockets and mortars launched by government troops are trying to push their front line forward from Misrata toward the capital. But an increased number of rockets have been hitting closer to Misrata this week, raising fears among rebels of a renewed push by Gadhafi’s forces toward the city.

On Wednesday, China told Libyan rebel leader Mahmoud Jibril that his Transitional National Council represents a growing segment of the Libyan public and is becoming a major political force in the country.

The comments by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi were the country’s strongest endorsement yet of the rebel council. Beijing, an important trading partner with Libya, says it isn’t taking sides in the more than 4-month-old conflict.

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Household Essentials, a Hazelwood-based distributor of ironing boards, hampers and other products for laundry and storage rooms, acquired Cedar Fresh, a cedar storage products manufacturer based in Miami.

Terms of the deal, which closed June 17, were not disclosed.  

Cedar Fresh was founded in 1984 and makes cedar drawer liners, hangars and blocks that are designed to protect clothes and linens from moths.   

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Internet minders voted Monday to allow virtually unlimited new domain names based on themes as varied as company brands, entertainment and political causes, in the system’s biggest shake-up since it started 26 years ago.

Groups able to pay the $185,000 application can petition next year for new updates to “.com” and “.net” with website suffixes using nearly any word in any language, including in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers decided at a meeting in Singapore.

“This is the start of a whole new phase for the Internet,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of ICANN’s board of directors. “Unless there is a good reason to restrain it, innovation should be allowed to run free.”

ICANN’s decision culminates six years of negotiations and is the biggest change to the system since “.com” made its debut in 1984. The expansion plan had been delayed largely because of concerns that new suffixes could infringe on trademarks and copyrights.

High-profile entertainment, consumer goods and financial services companies will likely be among the first to apply for their own domain name in a bid to protect their brands, experts said.

“It will allow corporations to better take control of their brands,” said Theo Hnarakis, chief executive of Melbourne IT, which manages online brands for clients such as Volvo, LEGO and GlaxoSmithKline. “For example, .apple or .ipad would take customers right to those products.”

The surge in domains should help alleviate some of the overlap of names in the most popular suffixes, especially “.com”, which has 94 million sites registered.

More than 300 suffixes are available today, the bulk of them country-specific codes, such as “.jp” for Japan and “.fr” for France. Those are typically restricted to groups or individuals with a presence in the countries. Only a handful are open for general use worldwide.

In March, ICANN approved “.xxx” for pornography, but some porn sites have declined to adopt the suffix, fearing it will make it easier for governments to ban them loan for people with bad credit. Conservative groups opposed the “.xxx” name too, arguing it could attract children to adult sites.

Analysts said they expect between 500 to 1,000 new domain names, mostly companies and products, but also cities and generic names such as “.bank” or “.hotel.” Groups have formed to back “.sport” for sporting sites, and two conservationist groups separately are seeking the right to operate an “.eco” suffix.

ICANN plans to auction off domains if multiple parties have legitimate claims. However, it expects companies will likely strike deals among themselves to avoid a public auction.

“I think we’ll see much more of that going on than see auctions generating circuses,” Dengate Thrush said. “But there is that prospect that there will be a couple of identical applicants and applications.”

The application process is arduous _ the fee is $185,000 and the guidebook is 360 pages _ and meant to prevent scammers from grabbing valuable domain names. ICANN will receive applications for new domains for 90 days beginning Jan. 12.

“It’s a significant undertaking. We’re calling it the Olympic bid,” said Adrian Kinderis, chief executive of AusRegistry International, which helps companies to register domains and manages names such as “.au” for Australia.

“But it’s worth it for corporations that have suffered from things like trademark infringement, and can now carve out a niche on the internet,” Kinderis said.

ICANN said it has set aside up to $2 million to assist applicants from developing countries.

“The board’s very enthusiastic about providing support for applicants from developing areas where the evaluation fee or access to technical expertise might be somewhat of a bar,” ICANN senior vice president Kurt Pritz told reporters after the meeting.

ICANN said in a statement that it will mount a global publicity campaign to raise awareness of the opportunities of new domain names.

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As its strike against local building contractors moves into its fourth week, the St. Louis Bricklayers union plans to ask a federal mediator to step in if the contentious impasse continues when the two sides reconvene on Monday.

Business Manager Don Brown of the bricklayers’ Local 1 blames the stalemate on the St. Louis Mason Contractors Association, which Brown accuses of trying to use the economic downturn to loosen the unions’ grip on local construction projects.

“It’s a tactic that hasn’t been tried here before,” Brown said. “They’re trying to get members to resign from the union. It’s telling guys, ‘You can scab on your own union.’”

Association Executive Director David Gillick denies any attempt to bust the union, citing an alliance between the bricklayers and union contractors dating back a century. At issue, Gillick said, is the association’s belief that the future success of regional construction rests on a fundamental shift in the way unions and contractors do business.

“We choose to be union contractors. They choose to be union bricklayers. But if we don’t change the path we’ve been on, the marketplace will change it for us. It won’t be our choice anymore,” said Gillick.

Len Toenjes, president of the Associated General Contractors of St. Louis, said the split between the two parties exemplified a failed reliance on short-term fixes to the complex task of positioning the region to compete in the post-recession economy.

“In order to attract development, we need to be competitive,” Toenjes said. “But striking a reasonable balance is difficult for everybody. And it’s especially hard when two (organizations) that have been doing business for 100 years are suddenly thrust into the global marketplace.”

The public bickering marks an end to a pledge by the union not to negotiate the terms of its next contract in public. Brown said he broke that agreement in response to remarks Gillick made in an interview ten days ago with Charlie Brennan on KMOX radio.

The bricklayers walked off the job when the five-year contract they agreed to in 2006 expired at midnight, June 1. Approximately 500 members of Local 1 haven’t worked since.

Another 200 have remained on projects, part of an “interim agreement” with a handful of contractors who agreed to honor the terms of a new contract retroactively, assuming a settlement can be reached.

Local 1 also hit the pavement five years ago when talks faltered in a resolution of the 2006 pact. That strike lasted only five days.

What separates the tone of the negotiations in 2006 from 2011, said Brown, is the economic climate.

Compensation and work rules are the primary negotiating points separating the two parties. The association is asking for concessions that would peel back salary and benefits by four percent. Local 1 has balked at the proposal, noting that economy-induced declines in construction already slashed the average annual bricklayer salary to $30,702 in 2010.

The hours worked by bricklayers this year have already dropped 38 percent, Brown said. To the union, taking a salary reduction in a depleted construction market makes no sense.

“Even if we agreed to (a pay cut), there still won’t be any residential work out there, because they just aren’t building homes right now, and they won’t start until the banks start releasing money,” said Brown.

The two sides also can’t get together on a rule change that would increase the allowable weight of bricks lifted by workers from 30- to 40-pound masonry blocks.

Brown, citing a study, said a bricklayer hoisting 40-pound blocks 200 times a day would lift the equivalent of five pickup trucks a week or 2 1/2 fully loaded 747 jetliners over the course of a year.

Gillick maintains the 40-pound lift is consistent with union-regulated rules in other jurisdictions, including those in Illinois.

The union and the contractors are in accord on one aspect of the strike: Without an expedited agreement, current projects throughout the region will soon suffer the consequences of the labor stoppage.

Toenjes says some construction sites are already ’seeing an impact.”

And Gillick cautions the situation is “hitting a critical point” as bricklayers are needed to complement the work of carpenters, ironworkers, sheet metal workers and other tradesmen.

“Their patience is running thin, and they won’t be able to let a project dwindle,” Gillick said of general contractors and clients in the region. “They are going to have to make a decision about whether to bring in a union guy or a non-union guy. And in some cases that is already happening.”

On Friday, Day 17 of the strike, neither Gillick nor Brown was optimistic that an agreement might be imminent.

One measure of the distance separating the two men was Gillick’s reaction when asked if he’d agree with Brown to turning negotiations over to a federal mediator.

His answer: Probably not.

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The United Mine Workers labor union says its members have ratified a new 5 1/2-year deal with coal companies in a nationwide vote.

The union said in a Friday news release from Triangle, Va., that 70 percent voted in favor of the collective bargaining agreement with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association.

UMW International President Cecil E. Roberts said in the statement that the members will receive the largest pay increase in the union’s 121-year-history. The union had said earlier that members would get a $6 an hour raise over the duration of the contract Payday advance. They would average about $30 an hour by 2016.

The Bituminous Coal Operators represent mainly the unionized subsidiaries of Canonsburg, Pa.-based Consol Energy. But the pension language of the deal affects more companies and thousands of miners.

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Builders broke ground on more new homes in May, but not enough to signal a recovery in the troubled housing market.

New-home construction rose 3.5 percent from April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 560,000 units per year, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

Economists say the pace of construction is far below the 1.2 million new homes per year that must be built to sustain a healthy housing market. Many credit-strapped builders are struggling to compete with low-priced foreclosures.

Housing permits, a gauge of future construction, rose 8.7 percent last month, to the highest level since December. But apartment and condominium construction accounted for a large portion of that increase. Permits for buildings with five or more housing units jumped to its highest point since October 2008, well before a second wave of foreclosures knocked home prices down further.

The number of single-family homes started in May rose a modest 3.7 percent. It’s at its highest point since January. But the construction pace of single-family homes, which accounts for about 80 percent of all residential construction, is well below the 2010 rate. The last two years were the worst for housing starts on records going back to 1959.

Fewer new homes mean fewer jobs. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Builders are struggling to compete with millions of foreclosures that are forcing down prices for re-sold homes. The median price of a new home is about 34 percent higher than the median price for a re-sale. That’s more than twice the markup in healthy housing markets.

“The high premium is expected to continue to sway potential buyers to existing homes and away from new ones,” said Christos Shiamptanis, economist at TD Economics.

In some cities, prices are half of what they were before the housing market collapsed in 2006 and 2007. Tougher lending standards have made home loans hard to come by. Many would-be buyers who could qualify for loans are worried prices will fall further. Others are reluctant to put their own homes up for sale when prices are dropping.

Home prices in big metro areas have sunk to their lowest since 2002, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index showed last month. Since the bubble burst, prices have fallen more than they did during the Great Depression. It took 19 years for the housing market to regain its losses after the Depression ended.

And this time, prices aren’t expected to come back up anytime soon.

Home building was uneven across the country: It fell 3.3 and 4.1 percent last month in the Northeast and Midwest, respectively, but rose 1.5 percent and 18.1 percent in the South and West. The big gains in the West were largely due to increased apartment construction.

Many foreclosures have been delayed as regulators and state attorneys general work out the details of new lending requirements and penalties for banks. Until those rules are finished, banks won’t ease their stricter lending rules. Most private lenders are requiring 20 percent down payments.

Few people think it makes sense to put their home on the market in this environment. Roughly 92 percent of homeowners say it’s a bad time to sell, according to the latest Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment.

In some badly hit areas, such as Phoenix, Tampa and Las Vegas, a housing recovery could take years.

The homebuilders’ trade group said Wednesday that its survey of homebuilder sentiment fell to 13 _ the lowest level since September. Any reading below 50 indicates negative sentiment about the market. The index hasn’t reached that level since April 2006.

Builders are not hopeful for a turnaround this year. An index that gauges sales expectations over the next six months fell in June to its lowest level on records dating back to 1985.

The weak housing market is weighing on the overall economic recovery.

But housing helps the broader economy in other ways.

Home equity accounts for most of the wealth of typical households. Equity is nearing its lowest point on records going back to the end of World War II. When prices fall, state and local property tax collections dry up and people spend less. Consumer spending fuels about 70 percent of the U.S. economy, more than any other industrialized nation.

In past modern-day recessions, housing accounted for 15 to 20 percent of overall economic growth. This time around, between 2009 and 2010, housing contributed just 4 percent to the economy.

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