Layoffs spread through all sectors of economy

Layoffs, like an economic flu bug sweeping across the nation, have now infected manufacturing and IS jobs. The job cut disease is reaching epidemic proportions; and the fever won't start to break until the economic stimulus flu medicine makes it out of congress.

So. To our 'friends' in congress... hurry it up, will you? Its cold out here.

We have almost a foot of new snow, its in the 20s (again and every day now; and this in a section of the country where 'winter weather' usually means 30s or 40s.) People are losing their jobs. People are struggling to pay heating bills that are unusually high this winter, due to the extreme cold. And of course... people are losing their houses.

Monday’s parade of negative news comes after months of announcements from other prominent companies like Citigroup, General Electric, Nokia and Harley-Davidson. As part of its acquisition of Wyeth, Pfizer said it would cut the combined workforce by 19,500 employees.

Yes, Citigroup. The very Citigroup that received a $50 billion bailout from our government, and then went out and bought a new corporate jet. Nice to see they have their priorities straight.

On Wednesday, the tally of mass layoffs for December will be released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Already, the bureau says the United States economy has shed 2.55 million jobs since the recession began, pushing the unemployment rate up to 7.2 percent last month.



“The economy is deteriorating at a faster clip than even the most dreary forecasts had expected,” said Joseph Brusuelas, an economist who, bucking the current job market trend, will soon start a new job at Moody’s Economy.com. “At the current trend, $43 billion will not be sufficient should we breach 9 percent unemployment and maybe reach into the double digits.”