The final week of January began with a bloodbath for the job market, as over 68,000 more cuts were announced on Monday alone.

At least six companies from manufacturing and service industries announced cost-cutting initiatives that included slashing thousands of jobs.

More than 200,000 job cuts have been announced so far this year, according to company reports. Nearly 2.6 million jobs were lost over 2008, the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945.

Construction machinery manufacturer Caterpillar said Monday it will cut 20,000 jobs. The company had already planned to cut 15,000 workers since the fourth quarter of 2008, but added another 5,000, bringing the total to 20,000.

Pfizer said in an earnings report it would cut 10% of its staff of 81,900 and close five of its manufacturing plants. And a second round of cuts will shed about 15% of employees from the combined Pfizer/Wyeth staff of 120,000. That makes a total of 26,000 jobs lost. The company already cut 4,700 jobs in 2008.

Sprint Nextel Corp. will cut a total of about 8,000 jobs by March 31, the company said in a release. The telecommunications company’s plan is to reduce internal and external labor costs by about $1.2 billion on an annual basis.

Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, announced Monday it will eliminate its EXPO design center business and cut 7,000 associates, or approximately 2% of the company’s total workforce.

Dutch financial group ING said Monday it will take a 2008 loss of $1.3 billion and cut 7,000 jobs.

Deere& Co., the world’s top farm-equipment maker, said it would cut nearly 700 jobs between factories in Brazil and Iowa.

The cuts mark a horrific start to the week, and a brutal start to 2009. In the previous week, around 40,000 cuts were announced across multiple industries.

Wednesday, in particular, was littered with a slew of job cuts: BHP Billiton, Clear Channel Communications, Intel, Rohm and Haas Co., UAL Corp. and Williams-Sonoma all announced job cuts totaling over 27,000 positions.

Also last week, Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. Entertainment said it would cut about 800 jobs, or 10% of its worldwide staff in the upcoming weeks, while Microsoft unveiled its plan to cut up to 5,000 jobs – 5.5% of its global workforce.

(Source: CNN Money.com)