Having saved a number of UK banks and building societies from the brink of collapse, it is now only reasonable that Santander consolidate their enlarged business but removing those jobs that have either become over staffed or unnecessary following their acquisition of Abbey, the Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley.

Today they announced 1,900 job cuts in the UK as they seek to consolidate their business activities.

This highlights the fact that even if a business is saved from failure, it is unlikely that all staff will be kept on. Nevertheless, had Santander not stepped in in the first place it seems inevitable that many more jobs would have been lost. It is time to be thankful for small graces in these turbulent times.

Sony have shown once again that the current economic downturn and job cuts are not limited to the banking and financial sectors.

Sony have announced that 16,000 jobs will be cut from their worldwide operations, a significant number of these will be in Asia.

With the globe entering recession many jobs are going to be cut across the whole world over the next 12 months and perhaps beyond.

Just this week major companies around the globe announced over 80,000 job cuts. Firms in the US are shedding jobs at a rapid pace, UK unemployment is expected to double over the next year and European unemployment, which had been falling sharply in previous years has begun to increase again.

These job losses are not only going to be in the financial sector, although there will be a lot of job losses in this sector. Citigroup alone is expecting to reduce headcounts by 75,000. However, jobs are being lost across the board in construction, retail, business services, manufacturing etc. The only place that employees can feel fairly confident of job security is in the public sector, however, I wouldn't be complacent anywhere!

Things are looking fairly bleak at the moment as we are currently in the heart of the storm. I'm not saying that the storm is not going to get worse but sometimes when you are in a downturn it seems like it will never end.