US job losses in December were staggering, rounding off a desperate year for the labour market. Some 524,000 US workers lost their jobs in the final month of 2008, making a total of 2.6m positions lost over the whole year, according to the US Labour Department.

America’s biggest companies are on the frontline in shedding staff. Dow Chemical is eliminating 5,000 positions and closing 20 plants; Anheuser-Busch, maker of Budweiser beer, is trimming 1,400 workers; and Office Depot is preparing to issue pink slips to 2,200 employees. Bank of America, one of the healthier US banks, plans to slash up to 35,000 jobs over the next three years.

In this downturn, now officially deemed a recession by the National Bureau of Economic Research, economic conditions and the threat of job losses are likely to get a lot worse before they get any better. With the future still uncertain for the car, banking and a broad range of other industries, job loss numbers appear likely to just keep piling up. Leading economists say unemployment, now at 7.2%, is expected to continue to rise into 2010.

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