Layoffs on the rise
Big News Network.com Wednesday 8th December, 2004
Challenger, Gray & Christmas of Houston said Tuesday Corporate America told more staffers to clean out their desks in November than in October.
The firm said announced jobs cuts increased 2.6 percent in November to 104,530 from October's 101,840, and were up 5.1 percent from November 2003's 99,452.
Challenger, an employment consulting firm, said November was the third consecutive month planned layoffs exceeded 100,000.
Through the first 11 months of 2004, announced layoffs totaled 930,690, down 19 percent from the same period last year.
The firm's job-cut report is a monthly reading on the number of announced corporate layoffs. It is not adjusted for seasonal variations. The report indicates trends in the labor market.
The biggest worry for the economy is that the large number of lower-middle class and middle-class Americans struggling to make it paycheck to paycheck will be short of discretionary income during the holiday shopping season, said John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
The Challenger report comes on the heels of a Labor Department report last Friday showing U.S. employers slowed their pace of hiring in November as non-farm payrolls grew by only 112,000.
Analysts said both reports rekindled worries about the strength of the nation's economic recovery.
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