More pink slips in the offing?

The deepening financial crisis and a possible recession in the US have cast their shadow on the job front of many of the financial companies. This week saw the issue of the largest number of pink slips since the beginning of the financial crisis and the latest reports quote that some 12,400 jobs have been cut mainly in Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Walchovia corporation and it is expected that more cuts are in the offing since the losses continue to mount.

This week job cut when added to the total lay offs amount to a mammoth 36,000 jobs lost since the beginning of the crisis in US alone. Notwithstanding the present lay offs, the Citi is planning to shed another 9,000 people owing to the fiscal tightening. The Citigroup posted a $5.11 billion quarterly loss on Friday taking billions of dollars write downs related to mortgages and crisis in the credit markets.

The world’s largest brokerage, Merrill on Thursday announced a $9.7 billion in write downs. Mr. George Soros, the well known billionaire-investor described the sub-prime mortgage crisis as the worst financial crisis of our life time and he was of opinion that the global losses could be as high as a whopping $1 trillion.

London fiasco

The fall out from the US sub-prime mortgage crisis has taken its toll in the form of job losses in London financial district, the city and the estimates suggest that 40, 000 people are likely to be sacked from their jobs. This is just double of the previous estimate by the analysts, JP Morgan.

Google profits up

Google on Thursday announced that its profit has gone up more than 30% to $1.31 billion in the first quarter of the present financial year, giving the much needed breather to the online advertisement companies and publishers alike. Google’s stock reacted favorably by leaping more than 17% to end at $526 a share. The main cash resource for Google, clicks on online ads, increased by 20% in the quarter under report. Hope the Google adwords people and publishers can be seen laughing all the way to the banks…