Wally: Looks like a mixed picture with some data showing slowdown and other data showing no such deal. Growth issue is whether economy is slowing sufficiently and whether slowdown is sustainable.
More from Challenger and Gray:
US corporate layoffs 36 pct off in June-Challenger
NEW YORK, July 6 (Reuters) - U.S. corporations cut 17,241 jobs in June, 36 percent fewer than in May and the lowest in three years, the international outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported on Thursday.
In its monthly job-cuts report, the firm said the June figure marked the sixth time since 1993 that monthly job cuts have been below 20,000. June's figure was 73 percent below the 63,397 job cuts from a year earlier.
Further shakeouts in the dot-com, or Internet, sector led the monthly ranking of industries with the most layoffs, as companies in that industry pared 2,967 jobs from their rosters.
In a statement released by the firm, John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray and Christmas, said "This should be convincing evidence that the New Economy has brought us to a level of productivity that no one predicted."
"The labor shortage may in fact be worse than it was even a few months ago," he added, saying that while government labor data illustrated loosening, human resource executives still found themselves at a loss for skilled workers.
11:15 07-06-00 |
