Gee, you think? I like Obama so far, but that’s a serious understatement. It merely pre-empted this morning’s news that confirmed just how bad the climate has become.

December saw American employers lay off another 524,000 workers, which brought the total number of 2008 losses to 2.4 million (one million of which came in just the past two months). It could still end up worse than that, given that the government revises the figures later. For example, October’s layoff total was revised from 320,000 to 423,000, while November’s data came in at 584,000, higher than the originally reported 533,000.

It means that 2008 was the worst year for the job market since World War II and the jobless rate now sits at 7.2%, up from 6.8% in November - the highest in 16 years.

With some $800 billion worth of stimulus money sitting on the sidelines, waiting to be released into the economy as soon as Obama takes office, the new president even admits that it’s unlikely to prevent the unemployment rate from shooting into the double-digits.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, supports that fear. Quoted in the International Herald Tribune, he says, “There was a change in psychology around the time the financial crisis devolved into a panic in September or October. Businesses went from trying to hold on to their workers to laying them off in an effort to survive.”

And the mass layoffs over the past couple of months have resulted in major drops in consumer spending (evidenced in yesterday’s terrible December retail sales report) and business spending.

And brace yourself for a very weak fourth quarter GDP growth report. Many employees who still have jobs have found their hours reduced - another sign that productivity will decline markedly. The number of aggregate hours worked in December dropped to 33.3 hours - the lowest since 1964. And the number of people forced to take part-time work because their regular hours were cut back rose by 3.4 million to 8 million over the past 12 months.

And it’s not just America suffering in the labor market. The situation is similar in many parts of Europe and also north of the border…

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Construction Crushes Canadian Jobs

As the country’s construction industry grinds into neutral gear, Statistics Canada reported today that employment dropped in December by 14,000 more than analysts had forecast.

On the back of 70,600 layoffs in November, the world’s eight-largest economy laid off a further 34,000 workers to end the year.