In the last year 2.6 millions jobs have been lost, the most significant drop since 1945. Unemployment is currently at 7.2 percent which is still a ways from double-digit 80′s. Between announced layoffs by Microsoft and Intel last week and several more major companies announcing layoffs today, that number does not look so far out of reach unluckily.
Within the last week alone we’ve had:
Microsoft: 5000 Jobs
Intel: 1000 jobs in the US, up to 6000 globally.
Xerox: 3000 globally
Starbucks: 1000, 1/3rd of which will be at their Seattle HQ the rest will be within the regions and “field” employees
Autodesk: 750
IBM: Rumored to be 16,000
Home Depot: 7000
Ericsson: 5000
Pfizer and Wyeth: 8000 combined jobs after merger
Granted some of these layoffs have not happened yet, and this doesn’t even add in the possible layoffs that will happen if the Big Three don’t get some bailout monies which could rise to be between 800,000 and 1.5 million jobs lost.
Unluckily Obama’s Economic recovery plan is too far off to help these people now. All we can really do is sit tight and stop the bleeding where we can, but I would not be surprised to see this Depression eclipse the 80′s, and possibly even the 30′s. Even worse is that with Global Economics the way they are these days, this will continue to affect the rest of the world making it even harder to dig out eventually.
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