The Unemployed Could Use a Hand, Too

No longer is unemployment somebody else's problem. Chances are you know someone who has lost a job recently. Or you know somebody who knows somebody who has become unemployed through no fault of their own.

In all the hustle and bustle to fix the economy, there is one thing we cannot forget to address: the extension of unemployment insurance benefits and a broadening of the program to provide benefits to more people.

In November alone, several major companies have announced large layoffs:

· The package delivery company DHL Express is eliminating 9,500 jobs. DHL announced it would close all of its U.S. ground hubs and discontinue its domestic air and ground services in January. That would leave just its international operation.

· Ford Motor said it was cutting 2,600 hourly employees as a result of targeted buyouts -- bringing the company's total U.S. hourly reductions through buyouts to 7,000.

· General Motors, whose company stock has plummeted, said it would cut production, idling 5,500 hourly employees.

· The retailer Circuit City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced it was closing 155 stores, affecting about 17 percent of its workforce.

· Fidelity Investments announced it would lay off 2.9 percent of its 44,400 employees. The company said a second round of job cuts is planned for the first quarter of next year.

· Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline said it was cutting 1,000 jobs.

I could go on, but it's just too depressing.

The U.S. employment ranks shrunk by 1.2 million in the first 10 months of this year. But more than half of those jobs were lost in the past three months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In October, 240,000 jobs vanished.

There is a safety net for a portion of the workers who have lost their jobs. They can turn to unemployment insurance, which was created in 1935 in response to the Great Depression. Unemployment insurance provides partial wage replacement to unemployed workers while they look for work. Each state administers a separate unemployment insurance program within federal guidelines.