Ouch! They call it Stormy Monday ....

"Thousands more jobs cuts were announced Monday. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc., which is buying rival drugmaker Wyeth in a $68 billion deal, and Sprint Nextel Corp., the country's third-largest wireless provider, said they each will slash 8,000 jobs. Home Depot Inc., the biggest home improvement retailer in the U.S., will get rid of 7,000 jobs, and General Motors Corp. said it will cut 2,000 jobs at plants in Michigan and Ohio due to slow sales.
Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest maker of mining and construction equipment, announced 5,000 new layoffs on top of several earlier actions. The latest cuts of support and management employees will be made globally by the end of March. An additional 2,500 workers already have accepted buyout offers, and ties have been severed with about 8,000 contract workers worldwide. In addition, about 4,000 full-time factory workers already have been let go.
Just last week, Microsoft Corp. said it will slash up to 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months. Intel Corp. said it will cut up to 6,000 manufacturing jobs and United Airlines parent UAL Corp. said it would get rid of 1,000 jobs, on top of 1,500 axed late last year."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090126/ap_on_bi_ge/business_outlook_17

But .... Tuesday's just as bad ...

now up to 50,000 jobs lost and its only 1pm

Geez. Is there no bottom to this?

NYT "65,000"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/business/economy/27jobcuts.html?partner=rss&em c=rss

Talk about a downward spiral! Keep laying people off, then all the unemployed people will spend less, hurt your business, and you'll be required to lay off some more people. Great idea.

Honestly, it seems that these layoffs are first and foremost attempts to satisfy Wall Street that the companies are cutting costs, to satisfy the analysts who rate the stocks. And short-term stock price is the #1 concern of many of these companies. So lay people off, and your stick price will go up.

They'll never learn.....

68,000 lost today is the latest..

Trickle Down doesn't work!

I am grateful and fortunate. I started a new job this week at Charter Communication's call center in Vancouver. I was one of 11 people hired for the inbound phone sales openings. But, they had OVER 400 APPLICANTS! I can barely wrap my mind around that! When I worked at Comcast, we would get a couple dozen applicants for such openings... and it was a better location (in Beaverton)! Wow.

Just heard on the news that Starbucks is closing down another 200 stores and laying off a ton of people. Not only that, BUT to save money, Starbucks is no longer selling Decaf Coffee after 12pm.
I guess its not cost effective to have the Decaf coffee after 12 pm.

Now if you absolutely have to get a Decaf Coffee at Starbucks after 12pm, you can still get one, BUT you will have to wait 5-10 minutes! And who is going to wait 5 minutes -10 mins for a cup of coffee??


And, Hey Shane! Times are TOUGH. My neighbor just lost his job last month, he went from making 80K a year to 12 bucks an hour. He has been looking for better paying jobs but can't find them. So in the meantime, he is stuck making 12 bucks an hour.

And what about all these older people that are in their early 50's and are getting the pink slips from their work??? Some of these people have been working at the same company for the last 25 years and are now out of a job! They don't qualify for Social Security, so they are really having a tough time!

....what about all these older people that are in their early 50's.....

We are losing out to retired people.

From a personal perspective, I know for a fact 6 pt (basically, what at one time were considered "ENTRY LEVEL": server, retail clerk etc)local jobs that I applied for have gone to older people, ALL 60+.

The local call centers here are hiring, (INFOCISION) but most of the jobs are outbound sales and charity fundraising. Same situation tho... if they want to add 50 people, 600 show up.

40,000 men and women everyday...Like Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday...Redefine happiness
Another 40,000 coming everyday...We can be like they are

> Trickle Down doesn't work!

This economic malaise certainly has a way of spreading effectively, albeit not necessarily in a strictly downward fashion.

UP to the wealthy and nada for the middle class and the poor!