ADP Says U.S. Companies Cut 693,000 Jobs in December

This is a very bad number. The pace of job losses are accelarating at a rapid rate. There is no way the economy can stabilze much less grow until job losses begin to slow-Lou

ADP Says U.S. Companies Cut 693,000 Jobs in December

By Bob Willis
Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Companies in the U.S. eliminated an estimated 693,000 jobs in December, the most since records began in 2001, a private report based on payroll data showed.

The drop in the ADP Employer Services gauge was larger than the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Today’s report is the first to reflect methodological changes that ADP says will limit the differences between its calculations and the government’s payroll numbers.

Companies are accelerating the pace of firings as the recession plaguing the world’s largest economy heads into a second year. The Labor Department may report in two days that employers slashed jobs in December for a 12th consecutive month, putting total job cuts at 2.4 million for 2008, according to a Bloomberg survey median.

“Firms are continuing to react very quickly to the downturn in demand with a combination of layoffs and restricting new hires,” Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts, said before the report. “It’s a major drag on consumer spending.”

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