By ALICE GOMSTYN | ABC NEWS

Despite better-than-expected reports on everything from housing to manufacturing this week, recession-wary U.S. companies are still shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs. The government reported that the nation’s employers cut 663,000 workers in March, pushing the unemployment rate up to 8.5 percent, the highest in nearly 26 years.

Since the recession began in December, 2007, 5.1 million jobs have been lost, with almost two-thirds of the decrease — 3.3 million job cuts — occurring in the last five months, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

“The ramifications of the financial crisis have been broadly spread across the whole country, wherever you are, whatever industry, whatever kind of job you have,” said Steve Cochrane, managing director of Moody’s Economy.com.

As widespread as the recession has been, however, its effects on employment have varied widely from region to region. Average state unemployment ranges from 3.9 percent in energy-rich Wyoming to 12 percent in Michigan, which continues to suffer as its auto industry declines (see chart below).