Manufacturing, construction and service providing industries have axed hundreds of thousands of employees just to make ends meet.

The unemployment rate rose to 8.5 percent from last month’s 8.1 percent.

5.1 million jobs have been lost since December 2007.

Beleaguered global insurer American International Group (AIG) is likely to sell its valuable assets, including its local subsidiary, Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co (Philamlife), within six to nine months, an AIG official said Tuesday.

AIG is selling various valuable worldwide assets outside its property and casualty insurance business, including Philamlife, to pay off its expensive $61 billion debt to the US government. The emergency loan kept AIG, once the world’s largest insurer, from going under after toxic mortgages led to massive losses. From ABS CBN News

Moves like this are resounding throughout the world as financial institutions slowly crumble under the heel of the growing recession.