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The job losses in this downturn are hitting workers across all income levels and job categories, and the cuts are swifter and broader than in past recessions.
"It's a real-time recession," said Diane Swonk, Mesirow Financial's chief economist. "We've never before seen so quickly layoffs announced, and then executed."
Since Labor Day, the U.S. has lost more than a half million jobs and that number is expected to go much higher before it gets better. In October, 240,000 jobs were lost, taking the unemployment rate to 6.5 percent, its highest level since 2004.
Just this week, more than 3,000 pink slips were handed out at Goldman Sachs [ GS 152.58 
+5.38 (+3.65%) ].
On the other end of the income spectrum, thousands of retail workers were told they would be let go as Circuit City [ CC 3046.0 +0.0 (+0.00%) ] shuts down 155 stores.
In the past several weeks, announcements of job cuts came from Mattel [ MAT 21.31 
-0.11 (-0.51%) ], Time Warner [ TWX 31.26 -0.01 (-0.03%) ], Glaxo [ GSK 35.16 -0.28 (-0.79%) ], Merck [ MRK 35.06 +0.32 (+0.92%) ], Xerox [ XRX 9.63 +0.11 (+1.16%) ] and Yahoo [ YHOO 13.76 -0.11 (-0.79%) ], to name a few.
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