More "Cheery" News

The number of announced job cuts in the US rose to a 16-month high in July, according to a report released Wednesday by the outplacement consultancy firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The total of 66,414 job cuts announced by private companies and government agencies was 60 percent higher than the number for June and 59 percent higher than the July 2010 figure.

Mass layoffs announced by five companies — the pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. (15,000), the now defunct retail book store chain Borders (10,700), the computer peripherals firm Cisco Systems (6,500), the defense contractor Lockheed Martin (6,500) and the medical device-maker Boston Scientific (1,400) — accounted for 57 percent of the July total.

Goldman Sachs announced 1,000 job cuts as part of a growing wave of layoffs by financial corporations.

The resumption of large-scale downsizing by major corporations is yet another indication that the economic slump in the US is deepening, presaging jobless levels even higher than the current official rate of 9.2 percent. US corporations carried out a ruthless program of job-cutting at the height of the recession that followed the financial crash of September 2008, but for more than a year they have largely refrained from further layoffs. At the same time, despite holding huge amounts of cash accumulated by lowering costs and driving up profits, US corporations have largely refused to hire new workers.

Now, with growth rates sharply falling, companies are once again axing jobs in order to cut costs even further and place more pressure on their remaining employees to work harder for less money.
~ from US Job Cuts Hit 16-Month High in July by Barry Grey ~

While the President and Congress spent the last 2 or so months posturing over a phony crisis, the real economic crisis in our midst willfully was ignored. So, today's news isn't surprising at all. Yes, it IS extremely depressing, but not surprising.