More Good News

The hits keep coming. Maybe I am particularly sensitive to this but it sure seems to me that the job cut announcements are accelerating. Last week it was the mighty Microsoft and now Caterpillar is cutting 20,000.

Caterpillar Inc said on Monday that quarterly earnings fell more than 32 percent and warned of a tough year ahead as the downturn that began in the United States metastasized into a full-blown global recession that hit sales of its earth-moving equipment.

The company also warned that profit in 2009 would be under severe pressure and said that it would cut about 17,000 workers and buy out 2,500 others, to reduce costs in the face of what it predicted would be the weakest year for business since the end of World War Two.

This follows close on the heals of Home Depot cutting 7,000 jobs and Sprint Nextel nixing up to 8,000. Dutch manufacturer Philips also announced cuts of 7,000 today.