WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - American workers were hammered again in March with large job losses, pushing the total number of jobs lost since the recession began to 5.1 million, the Labor Department reported Friday. U.S. nonfarm payrolls fell by 663,000 in March, close to expectations, while the unemployment rate jumped to a 26-year high 8.5% from 8.1%, as expected. "This recession is far from over," wrote David Rosenberg and Sheryl King, economists for Bank of America's Merrill Lynch. "There is nothing in this report that points to economic recovery," said economists at RDQ Economics. Details of the report were almost universally grim.