Payrolls get the ax
The number of companies that made “mass layoffs” in January is up 50 percent from the same month last year. Mass layoffs are when a single employer lays off more than 50 employees at one time.
A total of 2,227 employers made mass layoffs in January, the government says.
Big companies make big cuts
Companies including Boeing, Pfizer, Caterpillar and Home Depot announced that they would make mass layoffs this year. The Labor Department’s report doesn’t count layoffs that have been announced but are not yet completed.
The 50 percent jump only represents the number of laid off workers that turned in claims for unemployment benefits.
Not even sports are safe
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has taken a 20 percent pay decrease, and the league has cut 169 jobs. Milliken & Co., a South Carolina-based textile maker, says it will cut 650 jobs. Zales jewelers plans to shut down 115 stores and cut 245 jobs.
More headed for the chopping block
Spansion Inc., a flash memory maker, said it plans to lay off about 3,000 employees this year. Computer chip maker Micron Technology Inc. says it will lay off as many as 2,000 workers by the end of August.
What’s this? Good news?
Consulting firm Watson Wyatt says the number of corporations that expect to make job cuts has decreased. In December, 23 percent of corporations said they expected to have to make job cuts. Now only 13 percent expect they will lay off employees.
Instead, companies are looking at other cost-saving measures. Many are considering lowering health care benefits and 401k matching.
Summing it up
In total, employers cut nearly 600,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department says. That’s the highest number of jobs loss since 1974.
At the end of January, the unemployment rate was 7.6 percent, the highest in 16 years. Since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, companies have cut almost 3.6 million jobs.
I like the numbers going down, that’s some small comfort. It isn’t when it’s your spouse, significant other, or friends being subject to them wherever they may be still. The predictions were that the layoffs would start to slow and peak by September this year – let us pray that estimate was too generous, and they stop soon.