Unexpected! Announced U.S. Job Cuts Rise 212% in One Year

Are you better off than four years ago? Well, that question will be relevant this time next year as we prepare to sweep Barack Obama out of office. For now you should ask if we're better off than one year ago, and it's quite painfully obvious we're not.

U.S. employers announced the most job cuts in more than two years in September, led by planned reductions at Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and in the military.

Announced firings jumped 212 percent, the largest increase since January 2009, to 115,730 last month from 37,151 in September 2010, according to Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Cuts in government employment, led by the Army’s five-year troop reduction plan, and at Bank of America accounted for almost 70 percent of the announcements.

While the bulk of firings are not “directly related” to economic weakness, they “could definitely be a sign of more cuts to come,” John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a statement. “Bank of America is not the only bank still struggling in the wake of the housing collapse, and the military cutbacks are probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to federal spending cuts.”

More reductions will add to the pool of job seekers competing for work as policy makers, including President Barack Obama and Federal Reserve officials, strive to spur the labor market. Payrolls probably didn’t rise fast enough last month to lower the jobless rate, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists before the Labor Department’s monthly jobs figures in two days.

Compared with August, job-cut announcements climbed 126 percent, the Challenger report showed. Because the figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal effects, economists prefer to focus on year-over-year changes rather than monthly numbers.

Government agencies announced 54,182 reductions in September. Of those, 50,000 resulted from the troop reductions announced by the Army, Challenger said.

Look at the upside, Democrats. The bulk of these jobs lost are by evil "bankers" and the military, so rejoice: Obama's right on pace to fulfilling his promise of transformational change. Of course he's being roundly rejected by Americans.