[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.

[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).