Employers announced plans to cut 30,953 jobs in November, the lowest number of planned layoffs in over a year according to a report issued by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. November’s announced cuts were 39 percent lower than October’s, and 14 percent lower than a year ago.
Year-to-date, employers have announced 574,888 job cuts, 28 percent higher than the cuts announced by this point last year. Cuts are currently on pace to be the highest since 2009, when 1,272,030 layoffs were counted.
Industrial goods firms announced the most layoffs in November, with 7,398 layoffs planned, more than double October’s amount, as the U.S. manufacturing industry contracted in November for the first time since 2012.
“The fourth quarter tends to experience heavier cuts, as employers make year-end adjustments to workforce levels in order to achieve earnings goals,” says John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “The November decline could be the quiet before a December storm, or it could signal a lower-than-expected downsizing to close out the year. If recent history is any indication, it could be the latter as December job cuts have been lower than the annual average since the end of the recession.”
Read the release.
