If the numbers announced so far in January keep up, we’ll end the month with at least 500,000 jobs lost just due to layoffs. January could very well end up with 700,000 total job losses.
I think the numbers being announced (7.2%) are bullshiite. Looking at U6 gives a much better idea of what’s going on.
Check this out:
http://www.moneymorning.com/2009/01/26/unemployment-rate-2/
The Gov reported a 0.4% incrwase in U3 from Nov to Dec; however, it seems unlikely that a 0.4% increase would account for the Unemployment emergencies occuring across the counry. The Ohio unemployment agency normally processes about 7,500 calls a day but that rose to about 80,000/day in december. This article from USA today would tend to suggest that there was more than a 0.4% increasde in unemployment between Nov and Dec:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-01-11-unemployment_N.htm