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Economy in Brief
PMIs Stabilize or Creep Higher After Drop-Off
In the EMU, both the services and manufacturing sectors took a substantial step down one month ago...
FIBER: Industrial Commodity Prices Strengthen Selectively
The FIBER Industrial Materials Price Index increased 0.4% during the last four weeks...
German PPI Accelerates
The German year-on-year PPI has generally been decelerating since early 2017...
U.S. Leading Economic Indicators Signal Continued Expansion
The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators increased 0.3% during March...
Philadelphia Fed Factory Conditions Improve; Prices Jump
The Philadelphia Fed reported that its General Factory Sector Business Conditions Index rose to 23.2 during April...
by Tom Moeller October 6, 2010
The outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas indicated that the
level of layoffs during September increased slightly to 37,151 but that was
still near the smallest number since June of 2000. The level remains down by
more than one-half from last year. Planned layoffs announced during the first
nine months of 2010 totaled 411,272, down two-thirds from 1,136,908 announced
during the first nine months of 2009. Despite the decline in layoffs, the
unemployment rate from the Census Department remains high as the number of
long-term unemployed has surged.
Layoffs rose in September in the aerospace & defense, chemical, financial, food, government, pharmaceutical and transportation industries. Layoffs fell in apparel, automotive, computer, consumer goods, entertainment/leisure, health care, industrial goods, insurance, media, retail, services and utilities. During the last ten years there has been a 67% (inverse) correlation between the three-month moving average of announced job cuts and the three-month change in payroll employment. Job cut announcements differ from layoffs. Many are achieved through attrition, early retirement or just never occur.
Challenger also samples firms' hiring plans and they jumped last month by 123,076, up five times from the year-ago level. Plans jumped in the industrial goods and services industries.
The Challenger figures are available in Haver's SURVEYS database.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas | September | August | July | Y/Y | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Announced Job Cuts | 37,151 | 34,768 | 41,676 | -44.1% | 1,288,030 | 1,223,993 | 768,264 |
Announced Hiring Plans | 123,076 | 14,075 | 8,151 | 391.4% | 272,573 | 118,600 | 365 |