December's unemployment rate jumped to 7.2 percent and 524,000 jobs were lost. For all of 2008, the losses totalled 2.6 million, the largest yearly slide since 1945. Here are some early reactions, courtesy of the NYT:

“These numbers, back to back, of more than a half million a month suggest that the U.S. economy is in a freefall,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight. “It’s scary, and it indicates that unless something is done and done quickly to turn this economy around, we’re looking at an awful situation this year.”

“Even with a stimulus package, the unemployment rate is going to keep rising and by December it is likely to be over 9 percent,” said David A. Levy, chairman of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center. In a speech on the economy, Mr. Obama said Thursday that the unemployment rate “could reach double digits.”

“I would suspect that starting this past October and lasting through April, we will have really big job losses,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the Investment Technology Group, a research and trading firm.

“There was a change in psychology around the time the financial crisis devolved into a panic in September or October,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “Businesses went from trying to hold on to their workers to laying them off in an effort to survive.”