Summer layoffs largest since 2002
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- September
- 4
Though job cuts ebbed a bit last month, the tapering off wasn’t sufficient to keep the summer of 2008 from going down as having the largest number of job cuts since 2002, analysis released this week shows.
August job cuts jumped 12 percent compared to a year ago, totaling nearly 89,000, according to the latest Job Cut Report released Wednesday by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.
Employers so far this year have announced 667,996 job cuts, a 29 percent rise from last year’s eight-month total of 515,855, Challenger said.
With just four months remaining, this year’s job cuts are just 100,000 shy of last year’s total: 768,264. At the current pace, job cuts will surpass last year’s 12-month total by the middle of October and could exceed 1 million for the first time since 2005.
“Hopes of a late summer reprieve in layoffs were dashed by heavy downsizing in the automotive and government sectors,†said John A. Challenger, the Chicago-based employment firm’s chief executive.
“We have not seen this level of summer job cutting since 2002,” he said, “when the country was still struggling to recover in the wake of the 2001 recession and September 11.”
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on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 5:37 pm by David Schepp.
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