Unemployment Forecast to Rise to 6.8%

By Jeannine Aversa

WASHINGTON -- With the economy sinking faster, employers are giving more Americans dreaded pink slips right before the holidays.

The Labor Department releases a new report Friday that's expected to show the employment market deteriorated in November at an alarming clip as the deepening recession engulfed the country.

After bolting to a 14-year high of 6.5% in October, the unemployment rate likely climbed to 6.8% last month, according to economists' forecasts. If they are right, that would mark the worst showing in 15 years.

Skittish employers, which have slashed 1.2 million jobs this year alone, probably axed another 320,000 last month, economists forecast. If that estimate is correct, it would represent the deepest cut to monthly payrolls since October 2001, when the economy was suffering through a recession following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Employers are slashing costs to the bone as they try to cope with sagging appetites from customers in the U.S. as well as in other countries, which are struggling with their own economic troubles.

The carnage -- including the worst financial crisis since the 1930s -- is hitting a wide range of companies.

Just in recent days, household names like AT&T(T), DuPont(DD), JPMorgan Chase(JPM), as well as jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of United Technologies(UTX), and mining company Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX) announced layoffs.

Fighting for their survival, the chiefs of Chrysler, General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) will return Friday to Capitol Hill to make a pitch to lawmakers for the second straight day for as much as $34 billion in emergency aid.