Employers announced plans to cut 58,877 jobs in September, according to a report issued by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. September’s announced cuts marked a 43 percent increase from the cuts announced in August and was the third largest of the year.
More than half of September’s cuts came from the computer industry, which announced plans to reduce payrolls by 32,500. Hewlett Packard’s 30,000 planned reduction made up the majority of the cuts.
Year-to-date, the industry has announced 58,874 cuts, just below 59,928 for all of 2014.
On a quarterly basis, 205,759 job cuts were announced in the third quarter, up 40 percent from the cuts announced in the second quarter. Year-to-date, 493,431 layoffs have bene planned, up 36 percent from the first 9 months of 2014.
“Job cuts have already surpassed last year’s total and are on track to end the year as the highest annual total since 2009, when nearly 1.3 million layoffs were announced at the tail-end of the recession,” said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
The energy sector experienced the greatest number of cuts for the year, losing 72,708 jobs to date. Layoffs in the sector have slowed, however, as only 12,208 of those jobs were lost in the most recent quarter.
“While oil cuts have slowed, the issues that helped drive oil prices down in the first place are still impacting the economy,” said Challenger. “We could see more fallout, which appears to have its origins in China, which after years of building up its national infrastructure appears to now have far too much capacity. As a result, manufacturing plants, retail stores, and even entire apartment buildings are sitting empty.”
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