Friday, December 5, 2008

Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #457: Layoffs



Payrolls plunge by stunning 533,000 in November
Jobless rate rises to 15-year high of 6.7%, as recession deepens
It was only the fourth time in the past 58 years that payrolls had fallen by more than 500,000 in a month. Since the recession began 11 months ago, a total of 1.9 million jobs have been lost. Job losses in September and October were revised much lower.

In addition to the 533,000 lost jobs, an additional 621,000 workers were pushed into part-time work and 422,000 simply dropped out of the labor force.


"This is almost indescribably terrible," wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics. "The pace of job losses is accelerating alarmingly."

Emphasis added by me.

Well, duh, Shepherdson! Where have you been? Did he really expect people to be able to keep their jobs when companies are hemorrhaging revenues, profits, and stock values?

December -- when they release the final revised numbers -- should be even worse.

Because companies don't want to have the added expense of paying Christmas/ holiday bonuses.

Dig it:
"The threat of a widespread depression is now real and present," said Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland.

The recession "is going to be long and drawn out," wrote Jennifer Lee, an economist for BMO Capital Markets.

Emphasis added by me.

Yo! I've been screaming for twelve months now.

I've done my Paul Revere bit.

All I have to do after 12/31/08 is sit back and watch it all play out as I've seen it all along.

All of you can be thoroughly shock-horror over it.

I'm already beyond that, with the only possible solution.

I can wait. Can you?

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