Unemployment worsens, Q1-2009 headed for worst quarterly job losses in decades

"Pink slips stack up as recession drags on"

Pink slips stack up as cost-cutting employers ride out recession; no end to layoffs in sight," reports AP economics reporter, Jeannie Aversa, Friday, 2/06/09.  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Pink-slips-stack-up-as-apf-14275264.html

The chart shown aside, prepared by Reuters news service, shows visually the tempo of escalating job losses.  It is estimated that Q1-09 will be the worst quarter in employment job losses (yet).  Some economists are forecasting over 3 million job losses this year, ironically being the number of jobs the Obama stimulus package hopes to create or hold on to.  But realistically, the stimulus package has more to do with 'holding on' to benefits and suring up states budgets for unemployment benefits, health care, and transitional payments, than it has to do with real 'investment' in infrastructure and jobs that will mean a lasting impact on jobs and economic gains for the economy.  No doubt about it, we need a stimulus package, it is just that the package is more about consumption than investment, and at the end of the year, we will have little outside of debt to show for it.

Aersa writes, "Employers are slashing payrolls and turning to other ways to cut costs -- including trimming workers' hours, freezing wages or cutting pay -- to cope with shrinking appetites from customers in the United States and in other countries, which are struggling with their own economic troubles." 

The economic reporter writes further, "An avalanche of layoffs is slamming the nation from a wide swath of employers.  Caterpillar Inc., Pfizer Inc., Microsoft Corp., Estee Lauder Cos., Time Warner Cable Inc., and Sprint Nextel Corp. are among the companies slicing payrolls. Manufacturers -- especially car makers -- construction companies and retailers have been particularly hard hit by the recession. Talbots Inc., Liz Claiborne Inc., Macy's Inc. and Home Depot Inc. are all cutting jobs. So are Detroit's General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co.  Americans cut back sharply on spending at the end of last year, thrusting the economy into its worst backslide in a quarter-century. The tailspin could well accelerate in the current January-to-March quarter to a rate of 5 percent or more as the recession drags on into a second year and consumers and businesses burrow deeper under all the economy's negative forces.  Vanishing jobs and evaporating wealth from tanking home values, 401(k)s and other investments have forced consumers to retrench. And, in turn, companies are pulling back. It's a vicious cycle where all the economy's problems feed on each other, perpetuating a downward economic spiral. Many economists predict the current quarter -- in terms of lost economic growth -- will be the worst of the recession.  With fallout from the housing, credit and financial crises -- the worst since the 1930s -- ripping through the economy, analysts predict up to 3 million jobs will vanish this year -- even if Congress quickly approves the stimulus measure."