Announced U.S. Job Cuts Fell From Year Ago, Challenger Says
Announced U.S. job cuts fell from year ago, Challenger
Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. via Bloomberg
Challenger, Gray & Christmas CEO John A. Challenger.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas CEO John A. Challenger. Source: Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. via Bloomberg
Job cuts announced by U.S. employers fell in July from a year earlier, a sign of improvement in the labor market.
Planned firings dropped 57 percent to 41,676 from 97,373 in July 2009, according to figures released today by Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.
Job and income growth are needed to encourage Americans to spend and help revive an economy that’s shown signs of slowing. While planned job-cut announcements have posted their third straight month-to-month gain, they’re hovering close to the seven-year low reached in April.
“The increases are so slight and the monthly totals so low when compared to recent years, that the trend in no way suggests a reversal of the significant slowdown in job-cut activity witnessed over the past year,” John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a statement.
Still, job cuts do tend to increase later in the year as companies try to meet annual earnings goals, he said.
Compared with June, job-cut announcements rose 6 percent.
Government and non-profit agencies led job cuts with 7,193 announced reductions. Financial and transportation firms had the next-largest cuts, with 5,498 and 5,331, respectively.
California led all states with 6,853 announced job cuts, followed by Georgia, with 3,429.
Hiring Plans
Today’s report also showed that employers announced plans to hire 8,151 workers in July, down from 11,732 in June. Computer and automotive companies led the gains, with 2,880 and 1,640 positions, respectively.
A report from the Labor Department later this week may show private companies added 90,000 jobs in July, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists. In total, the U.S. probably lost 60,000 jobs, according to the survey, as the decennial federal census population count wound down.
Challenger’s data do not always correlate with figures on payrolls or first-time jobless claims as reported by the government. Many job cuts are carried out through attrition or early retirement. Some employees whose job are eliminated find work elsewhere in their companies and many announced staff reductions never take place because business improves. The totals also include foreign affiliates.
United Technologies Corp. said July 26 it expects restructuring actions from the first half of the year to result in job cuts of about 2,400 hourly and salaried employees. The maker of Carrier, Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky products, had eliminated 900 jobs as of June 30 and is targeting most of the rest of the reductions for 2010 and 2011.
To contact the reporter on this story: Courtney Schlisserman in Washington at cschlisserma@bloomberg.net
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