Planned job cuts nationally have retreated to their lowest level since before the recession and are running 69 percent below where they were for the first four months of 2009.
International executive-jobs giant Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., which bills itself as America”™s “oldest and premier outplacement consulting organization,” with offices in Stamford and New York City, said planned job layoffs plummeted in its most recent report.
After an increase in March, the number of planned job cuts announced by American employers fell sharply in April to 38,326, 43 percent fewer than the 67,611 layoffs the previous month, Challenger, Gray said. The April job-cut figure is the lowest since July 2006 (37,178). The February number was between the April and March figures at 42,090.
The report on planned job cuts was released last week. It showed that April cuts were 71 percent lower than the same month a year ago, when employers announced 132,590 planned layoffs.
So far this year, employers have announced 219,509 job cuts, 69 percent fewer than the 711,100 announced in the first four months of 2009. At the current pace averaging 54,877 job cuts per month, annual job cuts could end the year below 700,000 for the first time since 2000.
All data are from Challenger, Gray, with headquarters in Chicago.
While overall job cuts are on the decline, downsizing in the government and nonprofit sector continues. These employers announced another 14,973 job cuts in April, bringing the year-to-date total to 76,773. That is 182 percent higher than the second-ranked pharmaceutical sector, which has announced 27,214 job cuts this year.
The retail sector, which announced nearly 80,000 job cuts in the first four months of 2009, has announced just 21,267 job cuts through April.
“We have not seen job cuts this low since before the 2001 recession,” said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “It is certainly a promising trend that suggests most employers are increasingly confident about conditions going forward and slowing the pace of job cutting. However, this does not necessarily mean a hiring boom is just around the corner.
“Hiring is likely to increase in the coming months, but many employers are stubbornly slow to hire in the onset of an expansion.
“While the federal government remains relatively strong and is actually adding workers, state and local governments are under immense budgetary pressure resulting from a lethal combination of higher costs and shrinking tax revenue,” he said.
Regionally, as reported by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics in its most-recent February report, unemployment appeared to be holding steady in the 7 percent to 9 percent range after surging from the 4 percent to 5 percent range in 2007. The February report placed unemployment at:
- Fairfield County 8.8 percent;
- Westchester County, 7.8 percent;
- Putnam County, 7.3 percent;
- Rockland County, 7.5 percent;
- Orange County, 9.7 percent;
- Ulster County, 8.6 percent; and
- Dutchess County, 8.3 percent.
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