Layoffs involving at least 50 workers dropped sharply in Connecticut and every other state between the second and third quarters of 2009, though the number remained near a decade high.
Connecticut employers cut 1,600 jobs in a dozen mass layoffs reported to the U.S. Dept. of Labor, down from more than 5,400 workers losing their jobs in 27 mass layoffs in the second quarter. The third quarter job losses were also slightly below their levels from a year earlier.
Previously disclosed mass layoffs during the third quarter in Fairfield County include Watson Laboratories shutting down a Danbury facility; Pequot Capital Management Inc. ending its hedge fund operations in Westport; and Altria Group transferring its UST Inc. operations in Stamford to Virginia.
In New York, nearly 19,000 workers lost jobs as part of a mass layoff in the third quarter, down from more than 31,000 in the second quarter and close to 28,000 a year ago.
A regional think tank said Connecticut is on track to lose as many as 20,000 more jobs through next June, which would put the recession”™s toll in the Constitution State at more than 100,000 job losses since the first quarter of 2008.
Â
The Walpole, Mass.-based New England Economic Partnership issued the bleak prognosis at a conference this month in Boston, and stated Connecticut should expect only a modest recovery between 2011 and 2013 in part due to its proximity to Wall Street and the restructuring of the financial industry.
Separately, an economic advisory council to Gov. M. Jodi Rell predicted the recession would cost Connecticut between 80,000 and 100,000 jobs.
Procter & Gamble Co. reportedly plans to relocate a small number of jobs to its Duracell headquarters in Bethel from a research lab it is shutting down in Needham, Mass.
Â
Cincinnati-based P&G plans to close the facility by 2012, also moving some jobs to Boston and Mason, Ohio.
Procter & Gamble Co. will close its Needham research and development facility by 2012.
