Moody Economy.com's chief economist, Mark Zandi, describes the national situation as "nowhere to hide in this economy. If you lose your job, it's not clear where you should move to find one or even what training or education you need to retool yourself," he says. "The hallmark of the current downturn is that it is so broad-based across industries, occupations and regions of this economy."

Workers in some states certainly will be better off than others. Employers in six states — Washington, Texas, North Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico and Nebraska — and Washington, D.C., are expected to shed less than 1 percent of their workers this year.

At the same time, Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Connecticut, Hawaii and Michigan are forecast to lose the greatest proportions of their states' jobs. Michigan, hit hard by a rapid decline in the U.S. automotive industry, is expected to shed more than 175,000 jobs this year, a 4.3 percent decline, according to Moody's Economy.com.

Nationwide, employers are expected to cut 2.7 million jobs this year after eliminating more than 2 million positions in 2008, according to Moody's Economy.com.

The year is already off to a bad start. Firms cut 598,000 jobs in January, the most since 1974, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent, the highest in more than 16 years.

The most recent Workforce Service numbers put Utah unemployment at 4.3 percent.

More than 11.6 million people were unemployed last month nationally, up 54 percent from a year earlier and the most since December 1982.

Including people who were working part time even though they wanted full-time work, and those who had given up on finding a job, the rate of "underemployment" was 13.9 percent in January, up from 9 percent a year earlier and the highest since the Labor Department began tracking the number in 1994.

This month isn't looking much better. Already, household names such as Macy's, Electronic Arts and PNC Financial Services have announced thousands more layoffs.

Conference Board chief economist Bart van Ark attributes the uniformity of the downturn to the financial industry's crisis, which has led to tighter or more expensive credit for businesses and consumers no matter where they are located.

E-MAIL: lois@desnews.com