Two uninterrupted years of job losses, 58K more than projected in January, 3.2M overall

aggregate figures like this are pretty stunning...

The country moved into its second year of uninterrupted job losses last month, with companies shedding another 598,000 jobs and the unemployment rate moving up to 7.6 percent, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

Economists had forecast a loss of 540,000 jobs and a unemployment rate of 7.5 percent.

Job losses were once again spread across both manufacturing and service industries, reinforcing the picture of an economy that is contracting at its fastest pace in decades.

Employers in the United States have shed jobs every month since January 2008, for an aggregate decline in payroll employment of 3.2 million.

if you've got a source of steady income, get down on your knees and thank whatever powers you acknowledge, and then offer up a silent prayer for those poor bastards getting tossed out on the streets day after day after day...

and just hope you don't work for toyota, one of the supposed "success" stories in a brutal industry...

Less than two months after forecasting its first ever full-year operating loss, Toyota Motor said on Friday that it now expected that loss to be three times larger than originally expected as global auto sales continued to plunge.

Toyota said it expected to lose 450 billion yen, or $5 billion, in the fiscal year through March 31 in its vehicle-making operations.

[...]

A loss this year would be the Toyota’s first full-year loss since its founding in 1937 as the subsidiary of an automated loom company. The company also said Friday it expects a net loss of 350 billion yen, or $3.9 billion, for its entire group, which includes Hino, a truck maker, and Daihatsu, which builds compact cars.

In December, Toyota stunned many here by originally forecasting a 150 billion yen, or $1.6 billion, operating loss — a huge reversal from its record $28 billion operating profit just last year. Friday’s new larger loss forecast reflected how quickly the global auto market has continued to worsen during the current economic crisis, analysts said.

On Friday, Toyota also posted a net loss of 164.7 billion yen, or $1.8 billion, in the three months ended Dec. 31, offering the first glimpse of how last autumn’s global economic downturn affected the once robust automaker. In the same quarter last year, the company posted a 458.6 billion yen, or $5 billion, net profit.

The company said it was particularly hard hit in North America, traditionally its most profitable market. Toyota said vehicle sales in North America dropped 31 percent during the quarter from the same period last year to 521,000 units. The sales decline and losses on interest-rate swaps pushed the company to a 247.4 billion yen, or $2.7 billion, operating loss in North America.

the impact on the global auto industry is also being felt right here in argentina, a country that can ill afford more unemployed people on the streets...

Argentina’s car production plunged 54.6% in January compared to the same month last year, the Automakers’ Chamber (ADEFA) reported yesterday

The number of cars manufactured in the country totalled 18,720, down from 41,228 in January 2008.

Exports in January meanwhile fell 60% from the same month of 2008, (20.476 and 8.190) while sales of cars by manufacturers to dealerships ? which include imported vehicles ? dropped 38.9% (33,699 vehicles).

ADEFA said the sales of locally manufactured cars increased 8.5% in January, compared to December, although production is expected to decline in the near future as a result of dropping sales.

In 2008, car production in the country set a record, with 597,086 cars coming off the assembly lines.

i keep comparing what's happening to a slow-mo train wreck but i guess it takes a while for all the tentacles of the global system of financial servitude to finally untangle... it can't happen soon enough for me...

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