Haver Analytics
Haver Analytics
Global| Jan 06 2010

Challenger Indicates Further Improvement in the Labor Market

Summary

Labor market improvement is counted as fewer jobs lost and more jobs gained. Both were indicated for December by the outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas Their measure of job cut announcements fell last month to 45,094, [...]


Labor market improvement is counted as fewer jobs lost and more jobs gained. Both were indicated for December by the outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas Their measure of job cut announcements fell last month to 45,094, compared to a high of 241,748 in January of last year. The latest reading was the least number of layoffs since December 2007. Layoffs moderated in the construction, consumer goods, financial, health care, retail, services and transportation industries. They rose in the apparel and in the industrial goods industries.

Challenger also samples firms' hiring plans. During December plans recouped the November decline and were more than triple the year-ago level. Plans picked up sharply in the financial and aerospace/defense industries but more moderately in the government and insurance industries. The net of hires less layoffs was near its least 2007.

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 payroll employment. Job cut announcements differ from layoffs. Many are achieved through attrition, early retirement or just never occur.

The Challenger figures are available in Haver's SURVEYS database.

The Recession in Perspective from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis can be found here

Challenger, Gray & Christmas December November October Y/Y 2009 2008 2007
Announced Job Cuts 45,094 50,349 55,679 -72.9% 1,288,030 1,223,993 768,264
Announced Hiring Plans 35,592 10,076 57,520 253.0 272,573 118,600 365,583
  • Prior to joining Haver Analytics in 2000, Mr. Moeller worked as the Economist at Chancellor Capital Management from 1985 to 1999. There, he developed comprehensive economic forecasts and interpreted economic data for equity and fixed income portfolio managers. Also at Chancellor, Mr. Moeller worked as an equity analyst and was responsible for researching and rating companies in the economically sensitive automobile and housing industries for investment in Chancellor’s equity portfolio.   Prior to joining Chancellor, Mr. Moeller was an Economist at Citibank from 1979 to 1984.   He also analyzed pricing behavior in the metals industry for the Council on Wage and Price Stability in Washington, D.C.   In 1999, Mr. Moeller received the award for most accurate forecast from the Forecasters' Club of New York. From 1990 to 1992 he was President of the New York Association for Business Economists.   Mr. Moeller earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Fordham University, where he graduated in 1987. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from George Washington University.

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