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 Unemployment is expected to rise this year, and hiring could be slower in almost all occupations, economists say. Here are the industries that probably will suffer the most.

By MarketWatch

Though the job market isn't in tatters, there are plenty of loose threads, and they're likely to unravel further this year into full-fledged holes in some industries.

One problem, economists say, is that the job market will continue to feel fallout from the subprime mess despite about 153,105 job cuts announced last year at financial-services companies -- about three times the announced cuts each of the previous two years, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago outplacement firm.

That's not all. Many economists predict a slowing economy ahead, and that means "there will be an almost across-the-board slowdown in employment growth," said Michael Montgomery, a principal with Global Insight, an economic forecasting firm in Lexington, Mass.

That means slower hiring, not necessarily rampant layoffs. And the degree to which slower hiring or even layoffs affect an individual worker will depend on many factors.

• Talk back: Do you expect a recession this year?

Still, plenty of economists see the overall labor-market outlook this year as tougher than last year's. In 2008, "unemployment will almost certainly creep above 5%," said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute.

"While that is pretty low in historical terms, it's high enough that it's going to pinch some folks," he said. The jobless rate rose last month to 5%, a two-year high, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Which jobs?

Workers in some industries will be harder hit than others, said John Challenger, the chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

"Bankers, lenders, Realtors, construction companies, even home retail and materials manufacturers -- the people who make roofs or doorknobs -- are probably the kinds of companies or industries that will see the heaviest job cuts," he said.