693,000 JOBS lost in DEC. most since 1945!

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U.S. December Job Cuts Quadruple From Year Ago, Challenger Says
By Courtney Schlisserman

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Job cuts announced by U.S. employers almost quadrupled in December from a year earlier, paced by declines at financial firms, chemical makers and retailers as the recession rippled through the economy.

Firing announcements rose 275 percent last month from December 2007, to 166,348, Chicago-based Challenger. Gray & Christmas Inc. said today. For all of 2008, employers announced 1.22 million job cuts, the most in five years.

The economy is caught in a self-perpetuating cycle of rising job losses and declines in consumer spending that threatens to extend and deepen the economic slump this year. President-elect Barack Obama has said his top priority after taking office will be to pass a stimulus package that will save or create 3 million jobs.

“Unfortunately, heavy job-cutting could continue through at least the first half of 2009,” John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of the placement company, said in a statement. “Nearly every industry experienced higher job cuts in 2008, as fallout from the collapse of the housing and financial markets spread throughout the economy.”

The U.S. economy probably lost 500,000 jobs in December, according to the median projection of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News ahead of the Labor Department’s Jan. 9 employment report. That would bring the total decline for last year to 2.4 million, the most since 1945.
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By Rex Nutting
Last update: 10:03 a.m. EST Jan. 7, 2009

(MarketWatch) -- U.S. private-sector firms shed 693,000 jobs in December, far worse than expected, according to the ADP employment index released Wednesday.

The report paints "a shockingly weak picture of the labor market," said John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros, economists at RDQ Economics. The nation's labor market is on track for the largest quarterly decline since 1945, they said