Staggering jobs losses reported Friday

We all knew it was bad, but government figures released Friday reveal that 2.6 million U.S. jobs were lost last year. That's enough to get most anyone's attention.

But when we hear numbers this big we tend to let it go in one ear and out the other. In essence, it becomes a meaningless statistic - a number that's just tough to get your head around. But look at it this way: Imagine a business with 1,000 employees. Now imagine 999 more companies of that size. That's 1 million people. Then take all of those companies and multiply that number by two. That's 2 million people.

But wait - we're not done. Now add another 600 companies that each have 1,000 employees. When you add all of this up ... you get 2.6 million people.  

The worst part of this whole equation may be how tough the job market is for people who find themselves out on the street. Nancy D. Sidhu, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Department put it this way:

"This is a very tough market, and someone who is unemployed needs to look very hard," Sidhu said Friday. "Unless they have a lot saved up for this kind of time ... they might not want to be too picky."

Sobering but sound advice ...