Employers announced plans to cut 50,504 jobs in October, according to a report issued by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. October’s announced cuts were 14 percent lower than September, and 1.3 percent lower than a year ago.
Year-to-date, employers have announced 543,935 cuts, 31 percent higher than the 414,591 cuts announced by this point last year and 13 percent higher than the 2014 year-end total.
More than one quarter of October’s cuts (13,671 cuts) were oil related. Nearly one in five job cuts announced this year have been the result of low oil prices. The oil industry has announced the most job cuts of any industry this year, with a total of 90,052 job cuts so far. In the first 10 months of 2014, the oil industry announced just 10,402 job cuts, 766 percent lower than the same period in 2015.
“Despite the surge in job cuts across several sectors, it is hardly time to panic. While falling oil prices are impacting the bottom lines of companies in the energy and industrial goods sectors, they are helping many other employers, such as those in transportation and plastics manufacturing,” said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
The second highest job cuts so far this year were from the government, mostly due to cuts in the military. Year-to-date the government announced 69,105 job cuts, 226 percent higher than the same period last year.
The retail industry had the third highest announced job cuts so far this year, with 5,153 cuts in October. Year-to-date, the industry announced 64,983 job cuts, up 67 percent from the same period last year.
Read the release.
