Chanced upon these figures:
“…companies in their bid to save costs, have announced more than one lakh [100,000] job cuts in the month of December alone in the US, while so far in 2008 there have been close to 20 lakh [2 million] layoffs.”
http://profit.ndtv.com/2008/12/28200015/microsoft-advised-to-lay-off-o.html
No figures available on what’s going to happen the next month, as well as through 2009.
[ends]