Done waiting! It took almost a month, but today was a pretty good day for job cut announcements. Maybe I’m getting a little numb to the announcements. I’m not counting California state cuts, because they are old news, and it isn’t an official announcement. Today’s headlines:

1. Putnam Investments to cut 260 jobs — This isn’t the best news. Roughly 11% of their workforce. Incidentally, I have a beef with Putnam. I think they are borderline fraudsters the way they advertised their absolute return funds. I don’t know of a genuine absolute return strategy that can target 7% above inflation.

2. Caterpillar Offers Retirement to 2,000 Employees — This is in addition to the 22,100 layoffs it announced. My advice? Take the money! GM recently offered buyouts, and it turned to layoffs because not enough people took the money. I’m stating that this doesn’t count on grounds that it is a money offer.

3. Peugeot Plans More Job Cuts as Further Losses Loom — Times are bad for the European automaker. They are upping their 2009 cuts to 14,000. Not US jobs, so it doesn’t count.

4. United Air to Move 165 Call-Center Jobs Back to U.S. — +165 American jobs.

5. Seattle mayor moves up projects for quick jobs — +1,500 jobs in the next two years. It isn’t clear how many new jobs this is, and presumably all the work would have been done at some point. Still, there’s a time preference for jobs right now vs five years from now. Plus, Seattle has that creepy freeway that is about to collapse any minute.

6. Past plans raise doubt about stimulus job promises — Sorry to end with a downer, but Minnesota is about to start hurting pretty bad this year. Their banking industry is younger than the national average, and doesn’t quite have the reserves built up. About 10% of their 400 banks are probably going to fail over the next two years. They thought they were going to get more stimulus.

So, only one job cut announcement that counted. It’s not the cleanest win, but I’ll take it. I’ll still continue to post the job cuts on a daily basis.