Another 524,000 jobs lost

For the entire 2008 year, the U.S. shed 2.8 MILLION jobs.

But hey, don't you worry about ol' Bushie. He still has "joy" in his heart. No, nothing as trivial as unemployment skyrocketing to 7.2% or the worldwide economy tanking is going to dampen his joy. I'm sure glad that he isn't troubled in the least about the economy or anything else. Why would he be? He'll have a cushy pension for the rest of his life, along with a contingent of secret service at his beck and call. Where he actually belongs is in jail.

US unemployment surges as 524,000 jobs lost

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US employers shed a massive 524,000 jobs in December, capping a yearly loss of 2.8 million, as a deepening recession pushed unemployment to a 16-year high of 7.2 percent, official data showed Friday.

The staggering job losses in the Labor Department report heightened a sense of urgency for president-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress to agree on swift economic stimulus plan, analysts said.

The job losses over the course of 2008 were the most in a year since 1945, the Labor Department said in its monthly update. Some 1.9 million were lost in the past four months.

The agency also revised up the number of job losses for the prior two months. The October figure was changed to show a loss of 423,000 jobs from 320,000 and November's data to a loss of 584,000 from 533,000.

The jobless rate, calculated on a separate household survey, climbed to 7.2 percent, the highest since January 1993, from 6.8 percent a month earlier.

The brutal acceleration of job losses suggested a vicious downward cycle for the world's biggest economy, analysts said.

The report "suggests that both the US economy and job market fell off a cliff" at the end of 2008, said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight.

Behravesh said he expects "the jobs hemorrhage to continue through much of 2009" at a heavy pace and to ease if a large economic stimulus package can be enacted quickly.

"Nevertheless, the current pace of job losses means that the unemployment rate will rise into the 9.0 to 9.5 percent range at a minimum before leveling off," he said.

Yet some economists said the report showed the pace of job losses may have peaked as companies retrench and cut as much as possible.

Some analysts had expected a far worse figure after a survey by payrolls firm ADP showing the private sector lost 693,000 jobs in December.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid said lawmakers need to move quickly on a plan to revive the economy.

The number of unemployed rose to 11.1 million in December, the data showed.

The figures come as the US economy is gripped by the worst recession in decades, which began in December 2007 after a collapse of a house bubble and massive financial sector losses that led to a credit crunch.

In December, a large portion of the losses came in manufacturing, which shed 149,000 in the month and 791,000 in the year, with the auto sector hard hit.

But the service sector, which accounts for some 80 percent of employment, fared even worse, with 273,000 jobs lost in the month.

The original story is here.

A month or two ago, my company issued a statement saying that our goal was to cut all costs by 10% by the end of 2010, and that all of the savings could be accomplished by attrition and people retiring.

That was then.

Just yesterday, they revised that, saying that we needed to cut that 10% by the end of 2009, AND another 10% by the end of 2010. And the real kicker was that "a reduction in headcount can no longer be considered to be 'off the table." Great. We had three spectacular quarters in 2008, but one (modestly worse) 4th quarter and it's alarm-bell city.

Bush, may you and the anti-regulation conservative zealots rot in hell. But I'd be quite satisfied with Bush rotting in a cell in the Hague.