Job Cuts Top 100,000 in January - Report

Reuters ^ | Tuesday February 3, 2004

[Walkin Man]

Job Cuts Top 100,000 in January - Report Tuesday February 3, 12:50 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Planned job cuts in January were 26 percent higher than in December as U.S. jobs moved to countries like India, China and the Philippines, and as mergers made some jobs redundant, according to a report on Tuesday.

The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., said post-holiday job cuts reached 117,556 in January surpassing the 100,000 threshold for the first time since last October.

Financial markets were on their toes awaiting January's payrolls report to be issued by the Labor Department on Friday after a disappointing December report that showed an increase of only 1,000 jobs.

Analysts had expected 150,000 new jobs to show up in the data, and the worse-than-expected outcome showed that the U.S. economic recovery has yet to produce sustained jobs growth. Economists again expect a figure of 150,000 new jobs in January.

Poor job creation is a headache for President Bush as he seeks re-election in November. The economy -- specifically job creation -- is expected to be a key issue in the campaign. Since Bush took office, more than 2.3 million non-farm jobs have been lost.

According to Challenger, consumer product companies led the January cutbacks with 22,775 job cuts, the largest number of reported job cuts in that sector in a single month since 1993, according to Challenger.

Challenger said one of the main factors for the job cuts in January was an increase of employers eliminating jobs in the United States and shifting to service providers in India, China and the Philippines among other countries.

Another factor was an increase in mergers so far this year. The survey's head, John Challenger, noted in a statement that one of those mergers will result in "as many as 10,000 job cuts to take place as redundant positions are eliminated."

[Walkin Man]

Challenger said one of the main factors for the job cuts in January was an increase of employers eliminating jobs in the United States and shifting to service providers in India, China and the Philippines among other countries.

So-called "Free Trade" is great isn't it?

Until your biggest export becomes jobs anyway.

[clamper1797]

Looks like all those employment "gains" are going away ... with the holiday (temp) jobs. gee ... go figure

[EagleMamaMT]

Shhh...mustn't wake up the sleeping populace! After all, these are just jobs we Americans don't want, ya know!/(sarcasm)

[Walkin Man]

Looks like all those employment "gains" are going away ...

Yeah, all 1000 of them created in december.

Now thats what I call an economic recovery! /sarcasm

[Walkin Man]

As soon as the Republican controlled Congress passes President Bush's amnesty plan there will be hundreds of thousands of "jobs that Americans won't do" (minimun wage-no benefits) popping up.

You can count on that.

[azhenfud]

The question was recently asked why was there profits on Wall Street when job losses are continually soaring.

Corporate profits and domestic employment stability are no longer synonymous.

Many point to Wall Street numbers and claim the economy is growing, but short-sightedly miss the fact that just because a company declares a profit - a profit temporarily made by moving a job out of the US - does not mean the standard of living in the US is remaining stable, nor that the continuation of those profits are secure.

[Willie Green]

Shhh...mustn't wake up the sleeping populace!

They'll never notice.
They're too busy debating Janet Jackson's boob display.

[freeeee]

America continues its slide into third world nation status, and people squander their efforts throwing a fit over Janet Jackson's boob.

Compare the number of posts on this thread to any of the superbowl threads.

[righto]

The US is a repository of foreign investment because we have the most open economy amongst the G-9. If you espouse protectionism to supposedly protect US jobs you only weaken the repatriation of foreign earned funds and internal profits as well as weakening potential export markets for our products.
The future in any event does not bode well for domestic manufacturing jobs unless you're willing to pay more for that car or appliance because it's made here. You may say yes but you won't act accordingly.

[RockChucker]

Your saying we can't make our car and drive it too?

[Walkin Man]

Many point to Wall Street numbers and claim the economy is growing, but short-sightedly miss the fact that just because a company declares a profit - a profit temporarily made by moving a job out of the US - does not mean the standard of living in the US is remaining stable, nor that the continuation of those profits are secure.

So true. There seems to be a major disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street.

You can shut down all production in the US and move your operitions to communist China, India, etc and the stockholders will enjoy short term profits I suppose.

Meanwhile back on Main Street, the businesses that used to depend on the workers wages are devastated along with the workers themselves.

It looks like a zero-sum game to me. Everybody loses in the end.

[pabianice]

Until self employment numbers are counted, "unemployment numbers" will remain garbage.

[Warren_Piece]

Were all doomed ^{TM 2004 TexasDawg}

[Monty22]

If Bush doesn't do something about this, his job will be outsourced to Kerry.

[righto]

No. I'm saying that if it's efficient to produce elsewhere it helps our consumers, it creates overseas consumers for our products. Was that not why we financed the Marshall Plan after WW2?
Do you begrudge a foreign company from investing here for economic reasons? Works both ways.

[lelio]

You can shut down all production in the US and move your operitions to communist China, India, etc and the stockholders will enjoy short term profits I suppose.

Not only that, but people will blindly cheer the "upsurge in productivity per US worker" without thinking about how this number is calculated. Of course if you fire your manufacturing staff and send the operation to China your "productivity" numbers will go up.

[freeeee]

Meanwhile back on Main Street, the businesses that used to depend on the workers wages are devastated along with the workers themselves.

They'll just sell their stuff in Asia. That way they won't have to pay to ship it here.

[EagleMamaMT]

I agree 100% with that statement. That is the whole basis for this proposal - to turn every job left in America into a minimum-wage job.

[EagleMamaMT]

LOL! Bread and circuses....

[righto]

"Shutting down all production" sounds like the demogoguery and hyperbole which is unfortunately used in this type of conversation. I'd rather force the Japanese and Chinese to open up their economies from protectionism rather than worrying about the jobs lossed by transfer.