Great news, right? Until you realize that the “planned reductions” to which the company refers were up 47 percent from a year earlier and are still at recession levels. So while this is the third consecutive month in which layoffs declined, the job market is still in lousy shape.

Employers have sacked 711,100 employees so far this year. That’s 145 percent percent more than the 290,671 they cut in the first quarter of 2008. Keep in mind, this is “planned layoffs” we’re talking about. Presumably there were some unplanned ones as well.

“Job cuts are still at recession levels, but the fact that they are falling is certainly promising and may suggest that employers are starting to feel a little more confident about future business conditions,” said Challenger CEO John Challenger. “Hopefully, the next few months will bring further relief, as we tend to see downsizing activity slow during the summer months.”

Yeah, “hopefully.” But don’t count on it. Because Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the economy hasn’t quite bottomed out yet. Which means things may get a bit worse before they get better.

“The most recent information on the labor market–the number of new and continuing claims for unemployment insurance through late April–suggests that we are likely to see further sizable job losses and increased unemployment in coming months,” Bernanke recently told the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

With Adam Smith’s oft-lauded “invisible hand” giving investors the invisible finger and the U.S. mired in one of the worst market crises in recent history, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke finally decided to act. This morning they announced a sweeping plan to revive the suffering U.S. financial system. Using “hundreds of billions of dollars” in government funds, the Treasury will clear bad home loans from the books of the country’s financial institutions.

“The federal government must implement a program to remove these illiquid assets that are weighing down our financial institutions and threatening our economy,” Paulson explained in remarks to the press. “The financial security of all Americans–their retirement savings, their home values, their ability to borrow for college, and the opportunities for more and higher-paying jobs–depends on our ability to restore our financial institutions to a sound footing.”

Suffice it to say, Paulson’s remarks went over quite well with investors, who’ve clearly had quite enough of the market’s spelunking expedition. The Dow leapt more than 2 percent in the first moments of trading today, the Nasdaq more than 5 percent and soon the markets were well on their way to their biggest 2-day rally since 1929.

“Just like a child wishing for a Wii or an Xbox on Christmas Day, the market was hoping for some sort of RTC-type of arrangement, and there it was underneath the Christmas tree,” said Deutsche Bank’s Owen Fitzpatrick. “It was the booster shot that the market was looking for.” (“RTC” refers to the Resolution Trust Corporation, the entity created by the federal government to address the savings and loan crisis of the late eighties and early nineties.)

Question: Is this enough to heal the nation’s shaky financial system or will the market crisis reappear again like the dead uncle in some “Weekend at Bernie’s” (or, rather, “Bernanke’s”)-style Wall Street sitcom (”Bernie may be dead, but he’s still the life of the party!”)?

[Chart Credit: The Big Picture]

With Adam Smith’s oft-lauded “invisible hand” giving investors the invisible finger and the U.S. mired in one of the worst market crises in recent history, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke finally decided to act. This morning they announced a sweeping plan to revive the suffering U.S. financial system. Using “hundreds of billions of dollars” in government funds, the Treasury will clear bad home loans from the books of the country’s financial institutions.

“The federal government must implement a program to remove these illiquid assets that are weighing down our financial institutions and threatening our economy,” Paulson explained in remarks to the press. “The financial security of all Americans–their retirement savings, their home values, their ability to borrow for college, and the opportunities for more and higher-paying jobs–depends on our ability to restore our financial institutions to a sound footing.”

Suffice it to say, Paulson’s remarks went over quite well with investors, who’ve clearly had quite enough of the market’s spelunking expedition. The Dow leapt more than 2 percent in the first moments of trading today, the Nasdaq more than 5 percent and soon the markets were well on their way to their biggest 2-day rally since 1929.

“Just like a child wishing for a Wii or an Xbox on Christmas Day, the market was hoping for some sort of RTC-type of arrangement, and there it was underneath the Christmas tree,” said Deutsche Bank’s Owen Fitzpatrick. “It was the booster shot that the market was looking for.” (“RTC” refers to the Resolution Trust Corporation, the entity created by the federal government to address the savings and loan crisis of the late eighties and early nineties.)

Question: Is this enough to heal the nation’s shaky financial system or will the market crisis reappear again like the dead uncle in some “Weekend at Bernie’s” (or, rather, “Bernanke’s”)-style Wall Street sitcom (”Bernie may be dead, but he’s still the life of the party!”)?

[Chart Credit: The Big Picture]