."Wal-Mart Stores ( WMT - news - people ), the largest employer in the U.S., said in January it would eliminate 11,200 jobs, including 10,000 workers at its Sam’s Club stores, and another 1,200 member-recruitment workers."
"As of last week, the Forbes.com Layoff Tracker counted 684,531 layoffs announced at America's 500 largest public companies since Nov. 1, 2008. (See “The Weekly Layoff Report: Verizon Cuts Thousands More.”
While they don't mention which states specifically these companies are cutting jobs in, it explicitly shows that unemployment is increasing in number as the weeks progress. Today we learned that the U.S. is at a 10% average unemployment rate with certain states having higher unemployment rates than others.
Is this country headed to a depression? If this pattern continues we could be headed to long-run fluctuation of unemployment. I wonder if the national average will take a steep jump or will it level back to 10% as a result of more people falling into the discouraged workers category.
www.forbes.com/2010/02/04/jobless-claims-unemployment-markets-equities-economy.html
If this country isn't already in a depression it would appear that it is going to be soon when you consider this information. Things don't look good for the future when the top 500 companies in our nations are laying people of at a fairly rapid rate. While I'm not sure that the job losses mentioned in this article will be enough to greatly increase the national unemployment rate, the 684,531 jobs mentioned could certainly impact local communities that are may rely on these businesses. A
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