WWD just reported that the month of January saw 600,000 jobs cut from the American economy, 8,600 of which were from department stores.

This news comes right on the heels of yesterday’s department store news, that the S&P’s Ratings Services has placed six department stores - Dillard’s, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, J.C. Penney and Sears - on credit watch, which means any or all of those companies could have their credit ratings lowered, and we all know what that means.

In fact, Bon-Ton, Kohl’s and Saks have all recently had their credit ratings lowered from “stable” to “negative”.

Our advice? If you’ve been holding on to some gift cards from any of those stores, use them.

When we read about the following, we didn’t believe it either:

Because of a major lawsuit filed against major department stores in California in 2003 (it seems some of the big name stores were purposely holding back inventory to up the price of high end beauty products), everybody is getting paid back in a major way next week.

Starting January 20th, major stores like Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s are being forced to give away $175 million worth of beauty products nationwide, for free, to anybody who walks into their stores.

Shoppers only get one item per cosmetic company, while supplies last - Think Chanel, Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, etc.

Click here for a full list of stores/beauty brands.

And please, put all those eco-friendly totes to good use on Tuesday.

A series of scary information has lead us to consider that Saks may be headed into some especially difficult times.

Recently, it came out that Saks has cancelled several planned store renovations, and they announced that they’re “not opposed” to closing certain locations if shoppers continue to prove unwilling to spend money on premier designer booties.

The next day, Moody’s (the credit ratings agency you might remember from a couple weeks ago) announced they’d have to “review” Saks’ credit-grade rating - and we all know what can come from that.

Since then, Saks has mounted the biggest sale we’ve seen so far this holiday season, and introduced a new Major Purchase Account option for frequent shoppers (which is really just fancy speak for layaway, something Walmart brought back this holiday season, as well.)

And yesterday? We were told (albeit, randomly) that the Saks in Philadelphia may be closing very soon, which (obviously) no one can (read: will) confirm.

It’s no secret high-end department stores like Saks have been feeling shoppers’ money problems more so than other types of retailers, but could the words “bankrupt” or just “closing” be on the horizon for one of the country’s most iconic stores?

Stay tuned.