United Airlines is the latest casualty of a weakened economy. Jesse Russell reports:

United Airlines confirmed on Wednesday that early in the new year 1,200 employees would be laid off. The company has been working to reduce its fleet to adjust with the economic downturn and part of that plan is to ground 100 planes. The job cuts will include 700 mechanics in January and the airline also plans to close repair stations at three airports. The company also plans to lay off 490 customer service center employees and ground workers as well as 387 pilots. This isn’t the first announced mass pilot layoff this year, in June the company let go of 1,450 pilots. The country’s third largest airline isn’t the only one sending out pink slips, many Wall Street firms have announced this week that they would be cutting jobs as the economy sours. Jeffries Group, Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Credit Suisse will all have lain off nearly a combined 9000 white collar workers by the end of the year.