Wow.

Ouch.

U.S. private employers shed 693,000 jobs in December, up sharply from the revised 476,000 jobs lost in November and far more than economists estimated, a report by ADP Employer Services said on Wednesday.

Six hundred seventy nine thousand. Think about that.

That's more people than live in the states of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, and almost Alaska.

Granted, those are not populous states. But imagine an entire state of people lost their jobs. Including infants, and toddlers, children, and retired people who don't actually work.

And this all happened in a month.