From NPR.org:
Skittish employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years, catapulting the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, dramatic proof the country is careening deeper into recession.
The new figures, released by the Labor Department Friday, showed the crucial employment market deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid clip, and handed Americans some more grim news right before the holidays.
As companies throttled back hiring, the unemployment rate bolted from 6.5 percent in October to 6.7 percent last month, a 15-year high.
The unemployment rate would have moved even higher if not for the exodus of 422,000 people from the work force. Economists thought many of those people probably abandoned their job searches out of sheer frustration.
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7 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.Ugh. Thats scary. I’m in Detroit and work for an advertising firm. Our largest clients are the American Auto manufacturers. Our whole firm was wiped out the last 3 weeks because of budget cuts. There used to be 400 in our Dept. now there is only 30. The company that handles our payroll just sent out an email this morning informing us that banks were no longer extending them financing due to heavy automotive based business.
The shopping strip next to our advertising firms agency is struggling because of our layoffs. A Big apple bagel just closed, a mom and pop coney island restaurant closed, and the starbucks is consolidating with another one.
The auto companies struggling in our area is having a HUGE wripple effect that I dont think Congress is aware of. Even those not connected whatsoever to an auto company feel the effects because for sale signs and foreclosures in their neighborhoods effects their own property values.
But…. The fundamentals of the economy are strong! MAVERICK!
(i couldnt resist)
My husband just had to lay off 5 employees tonite. He is sick about it. The phone is just not ringing for orders. People who usually plan ahead for jobs to give us are not doing that. Scared.
Who needs statistics? After all, it’s only a mental recession.
I’m lucky and I know it. The company I work for is HQ’d in France, and since the dollar’s tanking, it’s suddenly more profitable for our US group to make parts than for their European division.
We’ve become the Mexico of Europe, and we’re not too proud to beg for more work.
The dollar tanking? Maybe back in JULY. Not now –not yet…
I swear, where do you get your information from, anyway– and how could you not know that if you work in France?
The contraction was overdue due to this phony service-based economy founded on the shakey ground of borrowing and consumption
Once our economy is based on savings and production of real goods will we start seeing any signs of recovery
For now the Fed is willing to push the bubble that left housing which was the bubble the Fed pushed from the Dot-Com bust into the bond market.
We are now seeing the end of the bond market (our currency) when the bubble burst there and they is no where for the Fed to push .. give it a year or two and we will be following down the path Iceland has blazed.
There’s still a few more countries ahead of us in line for that ride