US job losses are continuing to rise
US Job losses are continuing to climb month after month, and by the end of February 2009, the rate of unemployment has hit a all time high figure of nearly 8%. Compare this with less than 3% unemployment a few years back.
That will tell you the plight of US citizens in the last few years. The government is running on high deficits, and the sub prime crisis has pulled out lot of big and small banks and financial institutions out of the system.
The credit crisis has forced lot of US automobile and related industries to close down. All these have resulted in unemployment rate climbing up to record highs. If the next round of discussions between the auto majors and the government fails, US might end up seeing another bout of job losses, because there could be massive factory closures and job losses. The indirect job losses could also be very high because automobile industry has lot of supporting ancillary companies.
The crashing of Lehmans has already resulted in investors pulling out billions of dollars from mutual funds, which in turn is forcing lot of investment banks and broking firms to cut down their workforce drastically.
The very high level of unemployment will only result in more spending cuts for the US economy, which predominantly depends on consumer spending for economic growth.
