Mr. President-elect, welcome to our nightmare: a moribund economy gripped by fear. Businesses have stopped trying to grow and are racing to cut back as quickly as possible.

Few analysts, however, expected that the retrenchment would be as deep as this: 533,000 jobs were eliminated in November—the biggest losses since December 1974, when an oil shock and inflation hammered the economy and 602,000 jobs were lost.

The cuts were broad, running across industry sectors. Since the official start of the recession, in December 2007, nearly 2 million jobs have been lost. In the last three months alone, 1.26 million have been lost.

In November, the unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent, the highest since October 1993, from 6.5 percent.

The jobs data indicated that the downturn could be as deep and as a painful as the recessions of the early 1980s and 1970s. This slump is also a global one: The United States' biggest trading partner, Canada, today reported job losses in November that were its largest since 1982.

The deterioration in the labor market is expected to pick up speed. On Thursday, a number of companies, including AT&T, Viacom, and DuPont, announced sweeping layoffs. And the uncertainty over both the automakers and financial companies may produce further cuts.

Calling the recession a "crisis of historic proportions," Barack Obama, the president-elect, is pushing a plan to generate 2.5 million jobs in the next two years.

For some, however, hope may be fading. The Labor Department said that the number of people who have lost their jobs and do not expect to be recalled to work increased by 298,000, to 4.7 million, in November. Over the last 12 months, the size of the discouraged unemployed has grown by 2 million.

Manufacturing was among the hardest-hit industries, with 85,000 jobs cut. Manufacturing has lost 604,000 jobs since last December. Construction employment fell by 82,000 in November. Employment services cut 101,000 jobs. Retail lost 91,000 jobs.