World financial crisis: more than 1 million Americans lost their work

Following the data announced earlier by the Labor Department, the survey of Challenger, Gray & Christmas marked November as the worst month for layoffs since January 2002 when large employers cut about 250,000 jobs as the nation was recovering from the prior year recession and September 11 attacks. The previous month largest employers nationwide cut 181,671 positions which brought the total number of corporate pink slips issued by the moment to over 1 million.

The Challenger has been registering all the data on company-announced layoffs each month since 1993. The worst indices in the survey's 15-year history were reported in 2001 when 1.96 million layoffs were recorded. In 2007 the report showed 768,264 job cuts. Nearly half of the layoffs announced in November redounded to financial sector with Citigroup announced to fire 50,000 employees. In total financial firms cut 220,000 jobs this year which is more than 1/5 of all losses.

Meantime, the survey also reports that retail, transportation and automotive companies together announced 32,000 layoffs in November. And even though the technology sector was affected less it the plague did not turn to skirt them at all. In November, Sun Microsystems said it would lay off up to 6,000 employees. On Wednesday, Adobe Systems said it would cut 600 jobs.