• Bloomers lays off 127 workers.  Bloomers makes components for diesel engines.
• Barneys New York is eliminating 76 positions. From sales people to corporate executives, the cuts are wide-ranging. The retailer said the cuts were effective Monday.
• In Houston, that city’s only daily, the Chronicle has announced it has begun laying off about 12 percent of its work force. At present there is no exact number on how many will go.
• Hunton & Williams is on the verge of big layoffs, says Above the Law. It seems the firm has been quietly laying off partners in the last two months, recently froze associate salaries, and offered an early retirement program of unknown scope to staff.
• General Motors Corp. starts laying off white-collar workers as part of its restructuring plan, with 160 people losing jobs at its technical center in Warren, Mich.
• Los Angeles Times photographer Lori Shepler, photo editor Tracy Silveria and video journalist John Vande Wege have been laid off. The paper is owned by the Tribune company, which is in bankruptcy. You can find the letters from some of the above people telling the world they have been laid off.
• New York Gov. David Paterson has ordered that more than 4 percent or 8900 of state government workers be laid off. The total workforce is over 200000.
• Dell’s Limerick closure to cause 9500 job losses.
• The rate at which architects are joining the dole has accelerated to a year-on-year increase of 760%, it has emerged.
• The Newseum, the news museum in Washington DC was forced to make 13 job cuts last week as a result of funding cuts.
• Transport For London said 1000 posts will go at London Underground, including some lost after maintenance work was brought back in-house following the collapse of Metronet, and another several hundred at Transport for London.
• Removals company Pickfords could go through a pre-pack administration putting more than 1000 jobs at risk, despite only being rescued 12 months ago.
• A Newcastle law firm Watson Burton says it is looking at cutting about 75 staff.
• Kaleidoscope Travel Group has been forced to lay off 60 staff at Travelsphere and Page & Moy after weakening demand for escorted tours.

Total losses = 20898

First Group has announced plans to cut 3500 jobs – representing 3 per cent of its cost base – over the next year in one of the most drastic responses yet by a bus and rail group to the Economic Downturn.

FirstGroup, which has 140000 employees, said the job cuts would be split evenly between the US and the UK. About a third of the 1750 jobs to be axed in Britain will be in rail, with two-thirds in the bus division.

Total losses = 3500