Welcome to Laid Off Central
A Community for Laid Off Employees to Exchange Information, Experiences, Advise, Tips and Referrals about Job Searches, Unemployment, Personal Finance (Unemployment Insurance, Health Insurance, COBRA), Lay Off News, Headhunters, Job Boards, Staffing Firms and more
The number of unemployed workers in the U.S. reached 11.6 million in January, 2009. The Labor Department said employers slashed 598,000 jobs in January, the deepest cut in payrolls since December 1974, pushing the unemployment rate up to 7.6 percent. More than 22% of the unemployed have been in the job market for more than 6 months.
The number of newly laid off employees per month has been accelarating. From January to August in 2008 there were about 75,000 jobs lost per month. The nation’s employers cut 284,000, 240,000, 533,000 jobs in September, October and November.
Visit www.bls.gov (US Bureau of Labor) page for unemployment related figures and statistics.
| Monthly Unemployment Rate | |
| Jan-08 | 5.0% |
| Feb | 4.9% |
| Mar | 4.8% |
| Apr | 5.1% |
| May | 5.0% |
| Jun | 5.5% |
| Jul | 5.6% |
| Aug | 6.2% |
| Sep | 6.2% |
| Oct | 6.6% |
| Nov | 6.8% |
| Dec | 7.2% |
| Jan-09 | 7.6% |
This is a community site for Laid Off Employees to exchange information, advise, tips, referrals on a broad range of topics such as job search, money and personal finance, unemployment benefits and health insurance.
Please sign up to contribute to the site. You can visit www.laidoffcentral.net/community for community message boards. Message boards require a simple signup (an e-mail address is entered but a valid address is not required for authorization.)