The recession has led to many transformations in the employment landscape. One is that women now hold half of all the jobs in the U.S., according to statistics from the federal government. The Wall Street Journal reports that women make up 49.9% of the work force, up from 48.7% in December 2007. In 1970, women held only 35% of all jobs.

Lots of forces are behind this trend. Some women are taking jobs because their spouses earn less money due to the tight economy or because their spouses have lost their jobs. Households under pressure from debt burdens need more income, so many single-income families are becoming two-income families. And layoffs seem to be hitting men disproportionately in this slump.

The "Year of the Layoff" was supposed to be over now that the economy is improving and most large companies have fired as many people as they reasonably can. Productivity gains can only squeeze so much out of a shrinking work force.

But American companies are aggressively chopping their workforces again, and that raises the question of whether unemployment will continue to grow at the rate of almost 200,000 jobs per month well into 2010.

The weekly blizzard of economic statistics makes it tough to figure out what is really going on. But with a near-record number of people unemployed or underemployed, productivity at very high levels, and pay rising for the people who still have jobs, one conclusion seems to jump out: Companies are getting smarter about who they keep, how they manage the keepers, and who they fire.

Let's look at some of the numbers. The New York Times reports that what I would call wasted workers -- the combination of unemployed who are still looking for work, discouraged workers who have given up looking, and part-time workers seeking full-time jobs -- has hit a record 17.5%. This beats the previous record of 17.1% set in the midst of the Paul Volcker-led recession of 1982. (Then-Fed Chair Volcker's recession resulted from his decision to raise interest rates up to 20% to break the back of inflation.)

Apparently no one told Rupert Murdoch that the recession is over. Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (NWS) is closing its Boston bureau, according to a memo sent out Thursday by managing editor Robert Thomson.

"The economic background to the closure is painfully obvious to us all," wrote Thomson, adding that the nine reporters who worked in the bureau "will certainly be able to apply for openings elsewhere on the paper."

The last layoffs at the Journal took place in February, when the paper eliminated 14 newsroom positions. So far, it has avoided making deeper cuts of the sort that have afflicted most large U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times, which recently announced its second wave of newsroom downsizing.

Whether the office holiday party is a chance to unwind with colleagues or an evening of forced fun with people you're already sick of seeing all day, it's an institution of corporate America. The food is abundant, the liquor flows, and for a few hours, your colleagues are human beings. Then the next morning, you return to work with a hangover and with the same beefs you had before the party.

There's only one thing worse than having to go to the holiday party, and that's to learn that yours has been canceled. When corporate penny-pinching axes the event, that sends an unequivocal message about the company's financial strength and puts everyone on edge.