Ask The Money Coach

By Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, The Money Coach

At a time when we have our worst unemployment rate (7.2%) in 16 years, the job cuts just keep on coming.

Today the following five companies alone announced a combined total of 45,000 job cuts:

• Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of construction and mining equipment, said it was slashing 20,000 jobs after its earnings fell more than 32%.
• Sprint Nextel, the phone giant, revealed that it would be reducing headcount by 8,000 positions in the first quarter of 2009.
• Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company, told Wall Street it would remove more than 8,000 workers from its payroll – a move that will coincide with the company’s blockbuster $68 billion cash-and-stock deal, also announced today, to buy Wyeth, a rival drug company.
• Home Depot, the largest home improvement retailer, plans to close its Expo home-design business and cut 7,000 jobs, or 2% of its work force.
• General Motors announced that due to a drop in demand for its vehicles, it will cut 2,000 jobs at plants in Michigan and Ohio, and will halt production for several weeks at nine U.S. plants over the next six months. About a month ago GM temporarily closed 20 factories.

In 2008, 2.6 million jobs were lost, with 11.1 million unemployed at year end, according to a January report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The U.S. had not seen those many jobs lost in one year since 1945, when 2.8 million jobs were cut.

Fear you may get the pink slip? Don’t wait until you get the news before you start planning for the future. Read my tips on how to start earning extra cash.

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 Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, The Money Coach is a personal finance expert, speaker, and author of numerous books on personal finance. She appears frequently as an expert commentator on television, radio and in print.