Companies announced around 66,000 in job cuts Monday morning, as they continue looking for ways to cut costs amid the economic downturn.

Among the companies announcing large job cuts Monday were heavy-machinery maker Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) with plans to shed 20,000 jobs; pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. (PFE), which said it will cut more than 19,000 jobs following its planned $68 billion acquisition of Wyeth (WYE); telecom Sprint-Nextel Corp. (S), which warned it will cut 8,000 jobs; and Philips Electronics Ltd. (PHG), which announced 6,000 cuts. The job cuts are not restricted to the U.S. and include reductions in the companies' global work forces.

So far, companies have announced plans Monday to cut some 65,925 jobs. It's the largest job loss announcement for a single day so far this year, and adds up to more than a third of the 175,175 job cuts announced by companies so far this year.

As job losses mount, they threaten to deepen the recession. Banks, which have been hard hit by problems among subprime borrowers, now face the risk of rising loan losses from borrowers with good credits who have lost their jobs. Often these borrowers owe more than subprime borrowers.

Amid signs of rising unemployment, President Barack Obama said Monday the U.S. can't afford any delay in passing economic-stimulus legislation. The White House is looking to bolster support among Republican lawmakers and the public for an $825 billion package of spending and tax cuts to bring the economy out of recession.

According to a survey released Monday by the National Association of Business Economics, job losses accelerated in the fourth quarter, producing the worst survey result in 17 years. Some 44% of firms cut payrolls, while only 14% added workers.

Over the next six months, 39% of companies plan to reduce payrolls, the survey said.

The plans come as the Labor Department said Thursday that the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for state unemployment benefits soared last week to match the quarter-century high reached in December, suggesting layoffs continued unabated into the new year.

Monday, Caterpillar said it would cut 20,000 jobs, or about 18% of its work force, to reflect lower demand. Of the 20,000 workers Caterpillar plans to shed in 2009, about 4,000 will be full-time production employees and another 8,000 are temporary workers or contract workers.

"What would you expect the company to do?," Ingalls & Snyder analyst Alexander Blanton said in an interview, saying the job-cut plans from Caterpillar were not unexpected amid the declines in sales the company is anticipated to see.

Still, Sterne, Agee & Leach analyst Lawrence De Maria said the number of jobs Caterpillar said it will cut "is more than I would have anticipated. Certainly 18% will likely be on the high end of the cuts in our universe."

"This is an unprecedented downturn and some of these companies have no choice but to reduce headcount in times like this," De Maria said. "In general we would expect more job cuts as we go through the year, though not for Caterpillar per se."

Pfizer's plans to cut 15% of its work force following its planned acquisition amounts to more than 19,000 employees based on current work force levels at both companies. This will include Pfizer's new plan to cut its own work force by 10%. Both companies have laid off thousands of workers in recent years to cut costs, as has much of the rest of the pharmaceutical industry.

Les Funtleyder, an analyst with Miller Tabak and author of "Healthcare Investing," called the 19,000-plus jobs being cut "a significant number."

"There has yet to be a pharma-mega merger that didn't lead to reductions in force," Funtleyder said, "although this number looks like it might be bigger than anything we've seen."

He added, "the question is, will it make a difference? Will these reductions make it any more viable of an institution or entity? You don't know until a few years out."

As for the rest of the pharma industry, Funtleyder said "we still have revenue declining, so our expectation is we probably have more to come but a lot of it will be dependent on what new drugs companies can kick out." He expects sales forces will be cut, while cuts on the research-and-development side are "unclear."

Sprint Nextel's slashing of about 8,000 jobs, or roughly 13% of its work force, comes as it looks to streamline its operations in the face of further subscriber losses. The job cuts include about 850 positions expected to be eliminated under a voluntary separation plan started late last year. The company had already cut 4,000 jobs a year ago.

Home Depot Inc. (HD) was also among the companies that announced job-cut plans Monday. The home-improvement retailer said it will close its Expo home-design business and cut 7,000 jobs. The retrenchment comes as Home Depot has been struggling the past couple years with lower sales amid the housing slump. Its expansion a decade ago into home-design and higher-end home products through the 34-store Expo chain ultimately proved a failure.

"In a marketplace where it's hard to raise capital or refinance debt, this really is a prudent measure," Rochdale Securities analyst Jaison Blair said in an interview.

He said the overhead costs at many companies "may have been oversized" during the housing bubble. "The reality is that when an economy slides into a recession, you've got to make very tough decisions about the overhead that you carry."

-By Donna Kardos, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5963; donna.kardos@dowjones.com

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