The Most Depressing Industry Is...

Quick: Which is the most depressing industry to work in? Measured strictly by layoffs, several contenders are locked in a very tight race.

Automakers, of course, are suffering from high gas prices and slumping demand in a weakening economy. Wall Street is shedding bankers and brokers almost as fast as it is unloading illiquid mortgage-backed securities onto taxpayers. And the print media looks to be locked in the inescapable gravity of a black hole of death.

And then there are airlines. When it comes to job cuts, the airline industry may be trailing a bit behind the breakneck pace of Detroit automakers and Wall Street banks in 2008. But it's doing its best to catch up, recent data show.

Continental Airlines announced 3,000 jobs cuts Thursday. Coupled with the 1,000 cuts announced the previous day by United Airlines, the industry has cut almost 22,000 jobs so far this year.

After averaging about 1,300 jobs cuts per month in January and February, the rate spiked to 5,500 from March to May.

If job losses continue at current levels, 2008 would be the second-largest year of job cuts for U.S. airlines since 2001, when the industry cut nearly 100,000 jobs, most of them after the 9/11 attacks.

"The only reason we will not surpass the 2001 record is because the airlines never returned to pre-9/11 employment levels," John A. Challenger of the outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said. "Job cuts are likely to remain heavy, however, for the remainder of the year."

The soaring cost of oil has fueled cuts, and industry executives received more bad news Friday when Morgan Stanley predicted oil could reach the record price of $150 a barrel by July 4, news that helped send the markets into a tailspin.

by Alfonso Serrano F.