According to a source close to the layoffs, employees cut were treated well in the process and received a “decent severance.” No specifics about what severance entailed was given, but an extension of healthcare and salary were implied.

The biggest hit to the company economically has apparently come in the form of lessened demand for their enterprise solution, which enables employers to access salary data across specific jobs. Obviously, if employers aren’t hiring, they aren’t going to be too concerned about salary data.

The company’s consumer play, which allows anyone to access salary data, was less of a factor, according to a source. However, it likely played an important part. Services like Payscale, for example, have crippled Salary.com’s ability to partner with job boards and others which drive revenue. HotJobs dumped Salary.com for Payscale back in September 2008, for instance.

Our source shared a sense of “shock” at the layoffs and doesn’t believe there will be more in the immediate future. Cuts were said to be across the board, affecting most departments equally.

According to the report, for all of 2008, America shed about 2.6 million jobs This is the most since 1945, when 2.8 million jobs were lost.

Revised reports show that employers slashed 584,000 positions in November and 423,000 in October, a deeper figure than the 550,000 previously forecasted by economists.

The unemployment rate rose from 6.8 percent in November to 7.2 percent last month, the highest since 1993.

Industry-specific losses were widespread. Manufacturers cut 149,000 jobs, while construction shed 101,000. Professional and business services cut 113,000, retailers axed 67,000, and leisure and hospitality jobs were reduced by 22,000, leaving 11.1 million people unemployed in December.

And yet the bad news persists with few reassuring signs. Economists are now forecasting that the unemployment rate could rocket up to 9 or 10 percent this year.

The ADP Small Business Report released today found that small businesses - those employing fewer than 50 people - lost 281,000 jobs during December 2008. This is the largest decline the report has seen since the onset of the ADP National Employment Report dataset in December 2000.

Among the nearly 300,000 jobs lost, 80,000 were in the goods-producing sector and 201,000 were in the services-providing sector.

“Though the severity of job losses in recent months among small-size businesses has been less than that at larger-size ones, today’s employment declines clearly indicate that the recession has widened to include businesses of all sizes,” Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC, said.

Private sector employment overall decreased by 693,000 jobs during December. Aside from small businesses, medium businesses, which employ between 50 and 499 workers, lost 321,000 jobs and large businesses, which employ 500 or more workers, lost 91,000 jobs.

The goods-producing sector lost 220,000 jobs and the service-providing sector lost 473,000 jobs. The manufacturing industry itself lost 120,000 jobs while the construction industry lost 102,000 jobs, bringing the total number of construction jobs lost since January 2007 to 809,000.

Pursut’s management team, including Alison Bennett, CEO, and Warren Samek, COO, created their platform because they recognized the recruiting process was seriously flawed and that the industry lacked a modern job board that streamlines the hiring process while offering tools that promote educated decisions and cost-effectiveness.

Currently Pursut does not allow third-party recruiters on the site.

Job postings are accompanied by a slideshow or recruitment video of the company, as well as a side-by-side comparison of essential information related to the candidate’s geographical location vs. the employer’s location.

Employers are able to manage the entire hiring process on the Pursut desktop using the applicant tracking system. Candidates can also keep track of who they applied to.

“In these economic times, it is essential that money is not being wasted on services that are not producing the desired results,” Bennett said. “Job seekers need information to make their career decisions because they cannot afford to make the wrong decision.”

The discounts range from 5-50 percent off postings throughout 2009. The majority of coupons are redeemable on SHRM’s Job Posting Center (www.shrm.org/jpc).

“We’re excited to offer all of these job boards and savings coupons in one centralized location,” says Gary Rubin, SHRM’s Chief Publishing and E-Media Officer. “It’s a great tool and time saver for employers. When they need to post a position, all they will need is the Job Board Savings Book and SHRM’s Job Posting Center – we’ve created a tremendous advantage for them.”

“Employers will be eager to save money on recruiting in 2009. This book gives them a way to do that. Regardless of whether an HR manager plans to hire one or one thousand employees in 2009, the Job Board Savings Book will help them save money and discover new job boards to use,” says Andrew Banever, President & CEO of JobTarget.

The Job Board Savings Book will be inserted into the January issue of SHRM’s HR Magazine and the Winter issue of SHRM’s Staffing Management magazine reaching over 240,000 subscribers. In addition, a digital version is available for download at www.jobboardsavingsbook.com, where HR Managers and Recruiters can also sign up for free quarterly updates.

The small number of technical jobs (about 25,000) aggregated to the site works well because of the Google map at the top of the page that shows where each job is based. The relatively uncluttered map makes for easy navigation.

Search functions allow the user to set up filters for job distance, location, date posted, and key words. The user can also sign up for RSS feeds that will notify them when a new job gets posted.

There is also a statistics page that shows which site has the most jobs tracked (Krop is the leader) and a graph that depicts the number of jobs posted on the site declining month over month.

To gain access to the site, users must pay an annual $20 subscription fee. This allows users to access: an updated inventory of job seeker tips; job search and information tools; links to 62 job boards and a forum to connect with other job seekers.

“In searching for that winning edge, executive, middle management and entry level job candidates need a thoughtful approach and real-world answers to the tough questions interviewers will ask,” Co-Founder Nicholas Cianciola said.

“While there are numerous self-help books to pore through and expensive personal coaches to hire, what we provide is an easily accessible and affordable roadmap job seekers can follow to help eliminate the time, cost and frustration so often associated with candidates’ preparation efforts for performing well in an interview and landing a job offer,” he added.

Glassdoor surveyed over 11,000 companies operating in the United States before presenting their first annual Employees’ Choice Awards.

Coming in at number eighteen, CareerBuilder was the only job board represented on the ‘best workplaces’ list. Here is the list in its entirety:

1. General Mills
2. Bain & Company
3. Netflix
4. Adobe
5. Northwestern Mutual
6. Whole Foods
7. Google
8. SAP
9. Continental Airlines
10. NetApp
11. Intuit
12. McKinsey & Company
13. FactSet
14. Boston Consulting
15. Procter & Gamble
16. Caterpillar
17. Genentech
18. CareerBuilder
19. Apple
20. Juniper Networks

Ranking was determined by each company’s overall rating on Glassdoor, which is the cumulative average rating from employees who elected to participate in a 20-question survey that addresses key workplace factors, including work/life balance, career opportunities, communication, compensation and benefits, employee morale, recognition and feedback, senior leadership as well as fairness and respect.

Here is what some of the employees of CareerBuilder had to say about their company on Glassdoor:

“Great company to work for that has had some growing pains, but overall a stellar company.”

“CareerBuilder values and promotes people who are dedicated and committed to helping the company succeed.”

CareerBuilder CEO Matt Ferguson has an 86 percent approval rating on the site with employees generally ’satisfied’ working under him.

Not quite, says a source close to the organization.

Yahoo! spokesperson Kim Rubey wouldn’t reveal how many of the 1,500 job losses affected HotJobs directly. In fact, she didn’t really say much at all except that they’re constantly evaluating the business and looking at ways to improve … blah, blah, blah. We’ve heard it before.

The real deal usually comes from those not-so-official. According to our source, “A few sales managers were cut, under five, and about 10 reps were cut in west and east coast offices.” In an organization of “roughly 300,” in an economic environment that’s oh-so-unfriendly and at a parent company with a bad case of the Mondays, this is pretty painless.

Additionally, our source said some of those laid off - if not all - received a nice parting gift of 6 mos. in severance. It really is the season of giving in some corners of the world.

Why the lack of layoffs? According to our source, HotJobs is one of the darlings at Yahoo! “Directors and major sales managers were sent to Sunnyvale recently where they apparently were told by executive management that, across all business units, HotJobs operates on the biggest profit margin. Again I don’t know how accurate that is, but I can believe it.”

The top vote-getter didn’t come without controversy, of course. Lifehacker notes, “The majority of votes for Indeed were from first-time commenters (which generally means spam), but Indeed still snagged plenty of legitimate votes from satisfied users.”

Indeed.com brethren Simply Hired failed to make the field but wasn’t without one commenting fan calling themselves vdegeorge, “I’m a huge fan of Simply Hired which automatically hooks into LinkedIn profiles. I honestly can’t believe it didn’t make it to the list. I missed the High Five call.

“Careerbuilder and Monster may work, but be well prepare for the deluge of Spam and spammy offers for unreputable businesses that crawl the sites. ”

Click here to go get your vote on now.