70,000+ Layoffs Expected in One Day as Financial Crisis Deepens

In New York, construction equipment giant Caterpillar said it planned 20,000 job cuts worldwide to cope with plunging sales and US telecom operator Sprint Nextel announced 8,000 cuts -- 14 percent of its staff.

Japan's top 12 automakers expect to cut a total of 25,000 jobs between now and the end of March to cope with an industry slump, a survey by Jiji Press concluded on Monday.

Dutch banking and insurance group ING announced 7,000 job cuts and a deal for the Dutch state to assume 80 percent of the risk on a 27.7-billion euro portfolio of troubled assets.

Dutch electronics giant Philips said it would eliminate 6,000 jobs.

General Motors Corp. (GM) on Monday said it will lay off 2,000 more workers this spring and schedule down time at most of its assembly plants in the face of declining sales.

The downsizing is needed even though GM virtually halted production this month and slashed output by 20% in 2008.

GM this spring plans to cut shift at a small-car factory in Ohio and a plant in Michigan that makes crossovers including the GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave, a company spokeswoman said. About 800 workers will be laid off in Ohio and 1,200 in Michigan. Additionally, GM is planning to idle 14 of its 24 North American assembly plans for a week or more in the second and third quarter.

The Home Depot layoffs will include 7,000 jobs — about 2 percent of the total Home Depot workforce. Those jobs will all be associate positions. About 2,000 will be “non-customer-facing positions” in store support centers. The other 5,000 will come from stores set for closure.

The BBC is reporting tonight that the Steelmaker, Corus will be cutting around 3,500 jobs worldwide.

Most of these axes will be in the UK with more than 2,500 going.

Their UK sites employs 24,000 and the expected job losses can be found at Port Talbot, Scunthorpe and Teesside and also Rotherham.

Corus, a subsidiary of India's Tata Steel, employs 42,000 worldwide.

The government of Iceland was to resign Monday in the wake of the financial turmoil that hit the North Atlantic nation, Prime Minister Geir Haarde said.

Haarde, who last week said he was suffering from cancer and was to step down as leader of the Independence Party at the party conference in March, said the coalition with the Social Democrats has ended with immediate effect.

The coalition was formed after elections in 2007.

Iceland has experienced a wave of protests since October when the country's three banks Glitnir, Landsbanki and Kaupthing were nationalized after almost collapsing due to the global credit crunch.

The premier, 57, was later Monday to hand in is resignation to the president.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," McCain says it will take some big changes before he will vote for the Obama administration's economic stimulus package.

The Arizona Republican, who calls himself a member of the loyal opposition, says he can't vote for the proposal as it is now written.

For one, he says he doesn't think it will do enough to put people back to work.

While many critics have said the package is too large, others have claimed the package is in fact too small to have much of an impact in the near term.

A report from Goldman Sachs last week said: "Preliminary estimates imply that of the $825 billion Congress is considering, only $250 billion will make it into the economy in the current calendar year. This could still change as the package works its way through Congress, but these estimates highlight the political and practical challenges in enacting an effective fiscal package, particularly in 2009."

Republicans have been calling for greater tax cuts in the package, which they argue would have an immediate impact on small businesses and individuals.

"We're doing everything we can," Summers said in response to those critics. "But frankly, we're not going to rush things to the point of being wasteful."

The Obama administration has said three-quarters of the stimulus package would impact the economy within 18 months.

The U.S. economy lost 2.6 million jobs in 2008, and the new year has brought no letup in the pink slips. The recent spate of layoffs represent "structural, not cyclical changes to the economy," said Maryland's Morici. "They're the hallmark of depression."

Morici said we've so far only seen a sliver of the job losses to come and that unemployment will reach 9% by the end of the year—with "no end in sight."

The gloom was echoed by the National Association for Business Economics. In a report issued on Monday, the organization said job losses accelerated in the fourth quarter, with about 44% of reporting companies cutting payrolls while only 14% added workers. The group said business conditions were the worst since it began its survey in 1982.

The group said that 39% of companies plan to reduce payrolls over the next six months, while 17% plan to increase employment. The only increase in jobs came in the services sector.