U.S. gov't shutdown this year causes record number of furloughed days: White House

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 -- Federal employees were furloughed for a combined total of 6.6 million days during the 16-day partial federal government shutdown starting Oct. 1, the most number in all government shutdowns of the country, the White House said Thursday.

The shutdown that occurred last month inflicted completely unnecessary damage on the U.S. economy and took a toll on families and businesses across the country, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said in a report released Thursday.

At peak, about 850,000 individuals were furloughed each day. That number fell once most of the civilian employees with the Department of Defense were able to return to work during the shutdown, the report said.

The combination of the shutdown and debt limit brinkmanship cost 120,000 private sector jobs during the first two weeks of October, and multiple surveys have also shown that consumer and business confidence was badly damaged, the report said.

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