Planned layoffs at U.S. firms slip in August

Reuters ^ | 09-02-03

[Brian S]

Tue September 2, 2003 10:08 AM ET

NEW YORK, Sept 2 (Reuters) - U.S. employers announced fewer job cuts in August, indicating the job market may be stabilizing, a report showed on Tuesday.

Planned layoffs at U.S. firms slipped 6 percent to 79,925 in August from 85,117 in July, job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said. The year's announced job cuts so far total 795,574, still high, but 15 percent lower than the total for the first eight months of 2002.

But companies are still a long way from hiring new workers, the report added.

"While job cuts have fallen and there have been some positive signs of an uptick in manufacturing, there has yet to be any significant indication of a rebound in capital spending that would support the view that employers will begin hiring en masse," said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger Gray.

The report comes as financial markets await the government's employment report for August, due on Friday. Economists polled by Reuters expect payrolls to have expanded by 12,000 last month.

[Lazamataz]

Oh no! They're outsourcing LAYOFFS!!!

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

Employers are using search dogs to scour the vast darkened cube villages in hopes of finding reclusive, holdout employees to lay off.

"We may have to open up the H1B visa quotas if we hope to maintain this pace." A company spokesman said, upon condition of anonymity. "Without an influx of skilled foreigners, we'll never make our layoff quotas for this quarter. We're simply running out of people to lay off."

[arete]

"While job cuts have fallen and there have been some positive signs of an uptick in manufacturing, there has yet to be any significant indication of a rebound in capital spending that would support the view that employers will begin hiring en masse," said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger Gray.

Obviously, there is a battle going on between the Washington and Wall Street cheerleaders and the real economy. Hummm

Richard W.

[lelio]

You think that's bad? ATT's going to layoff 120% of its employees!

From there, said Armstrong, "it didn't take a genius to figure out that if we cut 40 percent of our workforce, we'd save $2.4 billion, and if we cut 100 percent of our workforce, we'd save $6 billion. But then we thought, why stop there? Let's cut another 20 percent and save $7 billion.

[Starwind]

DJ Challenger: August US Job Cuts Dn 6% From July

.

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The number of job cuts announced by U.S. corporations fell 6% to 79,925 from July, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas survey released Tuesday.

August is the fourth consecutive month that layoffs have totaled less than 100,000, the first time this has occurred since 2000.

Announced job cuts fell 32% with respect to August a year ago, the firm said.

The slowdown in job cuts, however, is only part of the employment story.

"While job cuts have fallen and there have been some positive signs of an uptick in manufacturing, there has yet to be any significant indication of a rebound in capital spending that would support the view that employers will begin hiring en masse," said Rick Cobb, executive vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

In fact, the firm notes that the number of layoff announcements has historically risen 36% in the final four months of the year.

The telecommunications sector posted the largest number of job cut announcements, with 18,739, followed by government and non-profits, with 6,921, and consumer products, 5,371.

The report is an anecdotal, non-statistical tally of job-cut announcements that are reported in major media outlets. The report focuses only on job-cut announcements, not actual layoffs, and it doesn't take into account new hires or internal transfers at companies that have announced layoffs.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an outplacement firm, tracks layoff announcements and releases its Challenger Employment report monthly.


-By Agnes T. Crane, Dow Jones Newswires, 201-938-2122; agnes.crane@dowjones.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

09-02-03 1000ET- - 10 00 AM EDT 09-02-03

[lelio]

The year's announced job cuts so far total 795,574

How does 800k figure (100k a month) jibe with 400k new UI applicants a month? Does that mean there's 300k non-announced job cuts a month? I take it you only have to "announce" a job cut if you have over so many employees (ie the WARN act).

[lelio]

Wait, that 400k new UI claims is per week not per month. So now I'm confused 4 times as much.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Good catch. I agree, it looks like announced "planned layoffs" are the ~800k figure (100k/month), and the other 300k/month were not planned nor were they announced.
This may account for the stealth layoffs (as one article recently put it) done by some firms; laying-off small groups per week over several months.
Nevertheless, this is good news, except that it also says that nobody is really hiring.

[Lazamataz]

How does 800k figure (100k a month) jibe with 400k new UI applicants a month? Does that mean there's 300k non-announced job cuts a month? I take it you only have to "announce" a job cut if you have over so many employees (ie the WARN act)

It's all one guy who gets laid off 250 times a second.

[lelio]

After releasing its 400k a week that means the difference is closer to 1.6M-100k = 1.5M a month. Granted some of these people only stay on UI for a week, but still. There's a whole bunch of layoffs goin' on!

Are all these layoffs coming from small businesses that don't normally announce their layoffs?

As for Laz saying its one guy getting laid off 250 times a second, you're only allowed to apply for UI once a quarter or half year. Perhaps in a parallel universe he's applying again and its counting.

[Lazamataz]

As for Laz saying its one guy getting laid off 250 times a second, you're only allowed to apply for UI once a quarter or half year. Perhaps in a parallel universe he's applying again and its counting.

You haven't heard of aliases????

(hands on hips, stern look)

[discostu]

Cut announcements aren't always for immediately. Like last week some company announced a series of layoffs taking them into 2005, that whole number goes into August's announced layoffs even though I don't think any of the people actually got laid off last week.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

Here's an article from the NY Post that you both should enjoy. There's is so much smoke and mirrors about these numbers, I wonder we even bother looking at them.

JOBS: LIARS, DAMN LIARS & STATISTICS
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/974341/posts