Unfortunately, there are a lot more of these days coming. We’re in the thick of earnings season so such announcements tend to occur when the numbers are provided. Unless we can have growth in Q1, we will see the same in April. I can’t speak for the US but in Europe I do see business moving again after a nearly complete shut down late last year. It’s not great, but it’s moving. As the week progresses there will be more quarterly reports and then the Q4 numbers will be out on Friday and most expect to hear that the US experienced a severe decline in GDP. Positive future outlooks by the corporate world could help temper the mood (and negative response on Wall Street) but even then, it would have to be something special.

The final week of January began with a bloodbath for the job market, as over 71,400 more cuts were announced on Monday alone. At least six companies from manufacturing and service industries announced cost-cutting initiatives that included slashing thousands of jobs. More than 200,000 job cuts have been announced so far this year, according to company reports. Nearly 2.6 million jobs were lost over 2008, the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945. “It’s all about the consumer, and the consumer’s been hit hard,” said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics. “It’s a vicious circle as weakness begets layoffs, which beget more spending weakness.”

A late addition to the Monday cuts include IBM who are cutting 2,800 employees pushing the losses for the day closer to 75,000.