Hemorrhage of U.S. Jobs Is Likely to Persist After Biggest Loss Since 1945

[marmar]

U.S. Payrolls Hemorrhage Is Likely to Persist After 2008 Drop
By Rich Miller and Shobhana Chandra


Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The hemorrhaging of the U.S. job market looks likely to persist into the new year after employers slashed payrolls in 2008 by the most since 1945, increasing pressure on President-elect Barack Obama to stanch the decline.

The nation lost 524,000 jobs in December, bringing the total drop for last year to 2.589 million, just shy of the 2.75 million decline at the end of World War II, the Labor Department reported yesterday in Washington. The unemployment rate climbed to 7.2 percent, the highest level in almost 16 years.

“The labor market has deteriorated sharply, and it’s telling us the economy is exceptionally weak right now,’ said Jim O’Sullivan, senior economist at UBS Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut. “The first quarter will be pretty rough again, with big declines in payrolls and higher unemployment.”

Obama, who takes office on Jan. 20, urged lawmakers on Jan. 8 to pass his economic recovery program “in the next few weeks,” warning that “if nothing is done, this recession could linger for years.” His plan, which has met with mixed reception in Congress, may exceed $775 billion and aims to save or create 3 million jobs.

Job losses last month were widespread, with manufacturers, builders, retailers and temporary-help agencies axing positions. Companies also cut back employees’ working hours, which economists said could be a harbinger of more job declines. The average work week shrank to a record-low 33.3 hours. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aP0yWU4Juf8o&refer=home

[Avalux]

1. What happened in 1945 was an short-lived post-war anomaly.

What's happening now is completely different; there are no indications these job losses will be short-lived.

[PM Martin]

2. This is going to hit the entire global economy.

[Double T]

3. 2009 will have a greater loss of jobs than 2008.

No jobs and progressively fewer jobs will make it impossible for a recovery. Stimulus and bailouts won't work. Closing foreign plants and bringing manufacturing, customer service, technical support, research and development, IT jobs back to America is the only cure for this economy. Continuing the same corrupt wall street and corporate behavior while throwing trillions more dollars at the same problems that got US here, will accomplish less than nothing and lead to our demise.

[izquierdista]

5. Unless

People get a "back to work" mentality, roll up their sleeves and begin to do the things that NEED to be done: repair the infrastructure, build public transit, invest in renewable energy, provide health care to all Americans, and clean up the environment to prevent future coal ash disasters.

There is plenty of work out there that could keep many, many people employed, but it doesn't fit the current model of building private wealth by ever increasing rounds of conspicuous consumption.

[blues90]

4. during the great depression we still had factories

They were closed but still there and the machines were still there. We still had prospects.

Now what have we got other than a service sector and all the work and manufacturing for the most part is out sourced.

And now there are a lot more young people entering the work force and we have a much larger population.

So even with 3 million jobs in three years or whatever the number of years projected is we are still far behind and without a viable economy. It is something like 150,000 jobs a month just to add for the people just entering the work force.

The population should have never enabled the big box stores to kill the small business or the HMO medical plans to rob the medical care system or de-regulation to kill over sight.

It took years to build up an economy like it takes to build a fine violin but seconds to crush it under the weight of a boot.