The final week of January began with a bloodbath for the job market, as more than 50,000 more cuts were announced on Monday alone.

At least six companies from manufacturing and service industries announced cost-cutting initiatives that included slashing thousands of jobs.

About 185,000 job cuts have been announced so far this year, according to company reports. Nearly 2.6 million jobs were lost over 2008, the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945.

"It's all about the consumer, and the consumer's been hit hard," said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics. "It's a vicious circle as weakness begets layoffs, which beget more spending weakness."

Construction machinery manufacturer Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500) said Monday it will cut 20,000 jobs amid a "very challenging global business environment." The company had already planned to cut 15,000 workers since the fourth quarter of 2008, but added another 5,000, bringing the total to 20,000.

Sprint Nextel Corp. (S, Fortune 500) will cut a total of about 8,000 jobs by March 31, the company said in a release. The telecommunications company's plan is to reduce internal and external labor costs by about $1.2 billion on an annual basis.

Home Depot (HD, Fortune 500), the world's largest home improvement retailer, announced Monday it will eliminate its EXPO design center business and cut 7,000 associates, or approximately 2% of the company's total workforce. The company blamed a lack of demand for big ticket design and decor projects.

Dutch financial group ING said Monday it will take a 2008 loss of $1.3 billion and cut 7,000 jobs. The company could not comment on where the cuts would take place. ING employs around 130,000 people across 50 countries.

Pfizer (PFE, Fortune 500) said in an earnings report it would cut 10% of its staff of 81,900 and close five of its manufacturing plants. The drugmaker recently announced that it was cutting up to 8% of its research staff, or up to 800 jobs. The company already cut 4,700 jobs in 2008.

Deere& Co. (DE, Fortune 500) , the world's top farm-equipment maker, said it would cut nearly 700 jobs between factories in Brazil and Iowa.

The job cuts across sectors didn't surprise Brusca, as nearly all are weak, he said.

"The services sector is shedding jobs at a horrific pace, because that's where most of the jobs are," Brusca said. "When the consumer is in tough shape it's hard for business to do well, because it all depends on consumption or investments."

Continuing the scary trend
The cuts mark a horrific start to the week, and a brutal start to 2009. In the previous week, around 40,000 cuts were announced across multiple industries.

Wednesday, in particular, was littered with a slew of job cuts: BHP Billiton, Clear Channel Communications, Intel, Rohm and Haas Co., UAL Corp. and Williams-Sonoma all announced job cuts totaling over 27,000 positions.

Schlumberger said Friday that it will cut 5,000 jobs worldwide, with 1,000 of the cuts taking place in North America.

Also last week, Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Entertainment said it would cut about 800 jobs, or 10% of its worldwide staff in the upcoming weeks, while Microsoft unveiled its plan to cut up to 5,000 jobs - 5.5% of its global workforce.

Outlook: A recovery in sight?
Brusca said he agreed with many economists' predictions that the recession will end after the second quarter of 2009. Americans might feel the job market start to bounce back a bit sooner than expected, he said.

"These recessions are like geometry," Brusca said. "It looks like we'll have a V-shaped cycle, in that we're going into this with very sharp losses. This intense-phase recession will probably recover fairly quickly, with the job market coming out it at the same angle it came in."

In the short term, the economy and the job market are in trouble, Brusca said. But "it doesn't look like the bottom is falling out of the economy," he said.

And there's a silver lining to the gloomy clouds over America's economy.

"The good news is it's so bad right now that we will have a definite, noticeable recovery when it comes," Brusca said. "We're getting a lot of adjustment out of the way early."

From CNN Money.com -1/26/09

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Oh God!

Fourth quarter results were announced by all the companies involved . It is there attempt to show shareholders that they are cutting costs and ensuring that the company will be profitable going forward.

everyone knew it was coming with caterpillar. they had an hiring freeze about 3 months ago. that's a warning sign.

ye paripa, seems i jinxed myself. I'm now a victim of the recession, my internship got canned.

Sorry to hear that , What does not kill you will make you stronger, at least you are in school so hopefully the economy will be in an upswing by the time you graduate. No gap in employment if you get my drift

Is there any way i can fund paypal account or buy liberty reserve here from any body here in portharcourt? if you are into selling any of these contact me. 08068569710,

sam o:

Is  there any way i can fund  paypal account or buy  liberty reserve here from any body here in portharcourt? if you are into selling any of these  contact me. 08068569710,

where did this one come from?

thanks for the advice pittbaby.

enter the fear. . .

does this signal the end of capitalism as the preferred model?

oyb:

enter the fear. . .

does this signal the end of capitalism as the preferred model?

nope, aren't most countries running mixed economies anyway.

You are welcome Bawo and correct there is no pure capitalist society. I guess our mothers were right when they said that too much of anything is bad for you . in this case excessive spending ( by both govt and consumers) and deregulation

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/30/executive.pay/index.html

Can you just imagine, and to make it worse Guiliani is still preaching trickle down economics in this times. Excuse me!!! I may not have a PhD in economics but I do know that if the $18B paid in bonuses was used to save some of the jobs lost on wall street, that will have been better for the NY economy. We all know that a greater % of the net income from those bonuses are not spent in NY , they are spent on Luxury items and services that are mostly foriegn made. What makes more sense more NYers keeping their houses, paying home ownership, income and sales taxes or some over bloated wall street exec who is going to find a tax shelter for his money and spend it on luxury foreign items and trips. Can you imagine taking our hard earned tax dollars has bail out money and still taking a bonus. Where is my fr**King bailout

caterpillar just announced an additional 2,100 job layoff in Illinois, wow things are getting hard for engineers in Illinois  .  Obama's stimulus can't come fast enough. i never knew the recession affected so-called safe professions.

bawomolo:

caterpillar just announced an additional 2,100 job layoff in Illinois, wow things are getting hard for engineers in Illinois . Obama's stimulus can't come fast enough. i never knew the recession so-called safe professions.

LOL, some careers are recession proof o. Take for instance medicine. People will always need doctors, etc, hence they will always have a job plus in most parts of the western world the health sector is funded by the government or public. Meanwhile, the rate at which projects have been coming up can be reduced, and a lot of it is the private sector, it is not a necessity

Sky Blue:

LOL, some careers are recession proof o. Take for instance medicine. People will always need doctors, etc, hence they will always have a job plus in most parts of the western world the health sector is funded by the government or public. Meanwhile, the rate at which projects have been coming up can be reduced, and a lot of it is the private sector, it is not a necessity

you are right. part of the stimulus is supposed to be building projects. so i hope and hope John Deere, caterpillar etc get some government money . i have a feeling things would ease up by the middle of the year.

actually Medicine and Education are not as recession proof as was thot, definately Doctors are not going to be losing their jobs , but because of the lack of hospital expansion projects and new hospital building projects , the rate of hire is lower. But all in all health care workers are getting laid of just not doctors and nurses (lucky suckers!!), mostly admin staff. We all need a stimulus jare !!!