Jobs continue to erode
 

U.S. employers have announced 930,690 job cuts this year, down 19 percent from the same period a year earlier.

But if December cuts reach 69,310, it will mark the fourth straight year with 1 million cuts announced by U. S. employers, Challenger added.

The report also noted that a new Business Roundtable survey of CEOs at major companies found that 20 percent expect employment to fall in the coming months, up from 12 percent in the previous survey.

Challenger said the economy's biggest worry is that a "large number of lower-middle class and middle-class Americans struggling to make it paycheck-to-paycheck will be short of discretionary income during the holiday shopping season."

In addition to job cuts, the pace of job creation has been sluggish during the current expansion. The number of jobs created since the last recession ended in November 2001 has been the lowest of any economic recovery in the United States since World War II.

Yes, and speaking of jobs eroding:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0...7&tid=98&tid=1

...uh, you Winamp programmers alright? ^_^;;;

Is there a link to this story or are we just supposed to take your word for it?

Within the last week or so, Statistics Canada reported that the national jobless rate of 7.3 percent for November reflected a rise by 0.2 percentage points from October. CBC News indicates that the performance was "slightly worse than some economists had been expecting."

Also last week, the German Federal Labor Agency reported that the jobless rate for November rose to 10.8 percent from 10.7 percent in October. According to FAZ.NET, "Although seasonally adjusted unemployment continued to rise last month, the increase was lower than expected ...."

And finally, the U.S. Department of Labor reported this week that the November unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage point to a seasonally adjusted value of 5.4 percent. This news was reported as "the weakest gain in five months and barely half what economists had forecast."

In summary,

a) Canada's rate is 7.3% and increasing,

b) Germany's rate is 10.8% and increasing,

c) The United States' rate is 5.4% and decreasing.

Additionally, according to this article, "So far this year, the economy has added more than 1.5 million jobs, at an average pace of about 178,000 jobs a month since September. Economists estimate that the United States needs to generate about 150,000 jobs a month to keep up with growth in the national population."

Job growth flat:

http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/03/news...mber/index.htm

Jobs cuts accelerating:

http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/07/news...ex.htm?cnn=yes