Economy, Layoffs | featured news

From household wealth to spending at stores, many of the U.S. economy's vital signs have recovered from the damage done by the Great Recession. Home foreclosures and layoffs have dropped to pre-recession levels.

Major banks have announced some 160,000 job cuts since early last year and with more lay-offs to come as the industry restructures, many will leave the shrinking sector for good as redundancies outpace new hires by roughly two-to-one.

U.S. employers posted the most job openings in four years in June, a positive sign that hiring may pick up. The Labor Department said Tuesday job openings rose to a seasonally adjusted 3.8 million in June, up from 3.7 million in May. That's the most since July 2008. Layoffs fell. The data follow Friday's report that said employers in July added the most jobs in five months. A rise in openings could signal better hiring in the coming months. It typically takes one to three months to fill a job.

Companies in July advertised the most jobs in three years, and layoffs declined – a bit of hope for a weak economy. Still, many employers are in no rush to fill openings. The Labor Department said Wednesday that employers increased their postings to 3.23 million from 3.17 million in June. That is the largest number of openings since August 2008. Typically, it takes anywhere from one to three months to fill an opening.

A California solar-panel manufacturer once touted by President Barack Obama as a beneficiary of his administration's economic policies -- and the recipient of a $535 million federal loan -- is laying off 1,100 workers and filing for bankruptcy.

In early summer, before layoffs began sweeping across Wall Street, billboard-sized photos of employees were plastered on the walls, pillars and elevator banks of Credit Suisse Group AG's offices in the United States and abroad.

Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency. Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.

The U.S. Postal Service would eliminate about 220,000 full-time jobs and shutter about 300 processing facilities by 2015 under a proposal to bring its finances in order, a postal official said on Friday.

Layoffs are down, and at pre-recession levels, but hiring remains slow, Labor Department data showed.

Gov. David A. Paterson cited the state’s financial problems in announcing a decision that reverses an earlier pledge.