US workplace suicides jump 28 percent

A US report has found a record 28% rise in workplace suicide rates last year as the global economic meltdown continues to take its toll in the country.

According to a report by the US Labor Department, 251 people committed suicide at the workplace in 2008, amid widespread layoffs and overall belt-tightening.

That's the highest figure ever recorded in the United States for suicide attempts at the workplace.

Labor Department officials did not explain the startling rise but pointed to the economic recession as the main reason behind the death rate.

Meanwhile, a separate study by the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine has also found that over a third of US homeowners who went through foreclosures are now suffering from severe depression.

More than 30 thousand people end their own lives each year in the United States where suicide is the second highest cause of death for men aged 25 to 34.