Job Cuts Accelerate

Read (cnn.com)

Depressing Job News from CNN/Money:

  • Companies announced 104,530 job cuts in November, up 5.1 percent from a year earlier and 2.6 percent from October.
  • The September through November totals mark the first time that announced job cuts have topped 100,000 for three or more straight months since January to April of 2002.
  • If December cuts reach 69,310, it will mark the fourth straight year with 1 million cuts announced by U. S. employers
  • The economy’s biggest worry is that a “large number of lower-middle class and middle-class Americans struggling to make it paycheck-to-paycheck will be short of discretionary income during the holiday shopping season.” (That’s certainly a major concern in this household this holiday season.)
  • We’re about 5-1/2 million (jobs) short of where would be today if this were a typical expansion.
  • We’ve fallen far short of prior economic expansions.