JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM)'s CEO Jamie Dimon recently stated that the recession in the American economy is "just starting."

As if to confirm Dimon's pessimistic view, the news is that JP Morgan will soon fire 4,000 employees, according to a Bloomberg report. The layoffs are being driven by two major factors: the "slowing environment" (try 'snowballing recession') and the sudden acquisition of 14,000 Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) employees.

Amazingly, Dimon reports that JP Morgan had found positions for 6,000 of the Bear employees. That seems like an awful lot of people to take on during a slowdown, but Dimon stated that Morgan was keeping only the very best Bear people and hoping to take on some of the firm's business as well.

Unfortunately for (some of) the people at JP Morgan, about 2,000 of the layoffs at JPM will be of Morgan people who are being replaced by Bear people. The other 2,000 will be Morgan employees who won't be able to blame Bear for their problems. (I'm not sure which is worse.)

Dimon did offer two bits of more optimistic news. He said that the integration of bear Stearns and Morgan is going smoothly -- although it's hard to know how much you can trust that statement, since what else is he going to say about that? And he said that in his view, the credit crunch is 75% over.

So that may offer a hint of brighter days ahead -- for his bank at least. For the broader economy, though, it still looks like dark days ahead.