Probing the depths...

Hammered by a steep drop in the sale of traditional packaged video games, Electronic Arts Inc. on Monday said it would cut 1,500 jobs, more than 16% of its workforce, even as the game publisher announced plans to acquire online game developer Playfish Inc. in a deal valued at up to $400 million...EA said those hardest hit by the cuts would be research and development workers, whose jobs will depend on whether games they are working on are canceled...LA Times.

Sprint Nextel Corp. on Monday said it will cut 2,000 to 2,500 jobs, mostly before the end of the year, as it keeps losing subscribers.

While the news from the private sector is grim, WSJ reported today that "A U.S. program that pays generous benefits to jobless people displaced by global trade has been swamped with applications in recent months, leaving thousands of potential beneficiaries in limbo. About 3,000 applications representing hundreds of thousands of workers have flooded into the government since May, when the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program was expanded. The benefits include unemployment checks, retraining and 80% of the cost of medical insurance for workers whose jobs move overseas or are diminished by foreign competition. The small staff at the Labor Department overseeing the program is straining to keep up. In six months, the number of applications has outpaced all of 2008, marking a record since the program was introduced in 1962 to protect workers while promoting global trade. Early this year, 50,000 people were getting the benefits, barely 1% of jobless Americans. Now, some 1,500 applications are in the pipeline, representing as many as 150,000 people, based on the average size of applications last year. Not all of these will be approved, although the government has been validating a vast majority..."

Going further into debt to fund such lavish programs is not the hallmark of a good leader.