Report: Planned layoffs lowest in a decade

[sabra]

Source: bizjournals

U.S. employers planned 34,768 layoffs last month, down 17 percent from July and the lowest monthly amount in more than a decade, Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. reported Wednesday.

The global outplacement consultancy said while job creation continues to be sluggish, the lack of job cuts is a positive sign for the American economy. The private sector has reported small net job gains seven consecutive months, but not enough to budge unemployment, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The decrease in August was the first consecutive decline in three months and the lowest total amount of cuts since June 2000, the company said.

The cuts last month were 55 percent below the 76,456 planned cuts announced in August 2009. So far this year, monthly totals have averaged 62 percent less than the year-ago figure. Unemployment in Austin fell to 7.3 percent in July with a net 18,600 jobs added year-over-year.

“The layoff picture has improved so significantly that we are at pre-dot.com-collapse levels when it comes to monthly job-cut announcements. There have been 15 consecutive months in which job cuts have not exceeded 100,000,” Challenger, Gray & Christmas CEO John A. Challenger said.



Read more: http://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/stories/2010/08/30/daily16.html

[babylonsister]

1. Thanks for some good news, sabra. nt

[Lochloosa]

2. Who the fuck is left to layoff?

[pattmarty]

3. Yeah, exactly what I was thinking. If companies cut so far and still...........

..........want to stay in business, they still need a minimum amount of employees just to operate. We are now at the point where they cannot cut any further.

[Moostache]

4. Exactly....once you have cut to the bone, you kind of need to stop!

The company I work for now has been running a 24/7 manufacturing operation with 24/5 staffing and mandatory weekend OT for the last 22 months with no end in sight...the corporate ass faces (the ones who granted themselves a 20% BONUS LAST YEAR while paying out 1.2% Pay Increases to the line employees and much, much smaller pro-rated bonuses that cut 25% off the top due to missing an arbitrary and unobtainable productivity goal) LOVE the productivity increase and decrease in "costs" (ie. actually hiring enough people to do the job AND maintain the AQL - acceptable quality limits) but I shit you not, it is killing the employees - I have had 3 employees forced to take 2 weeks of unpaid time and then go on disability insurance due to failing health in just the last 6 months.

I have people on my crew that have not had a SINGLE day off in over 2 months (their pay is so insultingly bad that they literally cannot afford to live without the OT and as a result they do not wish to lose their standing or their place in the pecking order for OT assignments)...and they are terrified that if they DO exercise some ETO that they will be the next one replaced with another 'permanent-temporary employee'...you know them, the ones that do the EXACT SAME WORK but receive ZERO PAID BENEFITS...not even the $3.00 cafeteria per diem...my family needs the money and the health insurance that I receive from this job and as I am a cancer survivor and basically un-insurable on the "free market" (until at least Jan. 1, 2014 - bang up job on that "reform bill" btw...I mean really, who needs insurance for their pre-existing AND CURED condition for the next 4 years anyway...and by the time the provision WOULD kick in this country appears hell bent on handing the keys over the assholes that would immediately REPEAL THE PROVISION anyway!)<\i>, I feel quite unable to move.

(I have become such an insufferable asshole since having to take this job that sometimes I barely recognize myself...and then people wonder why I feel so disappointed by the current administration and can't seem to understand why I am screaming from the top of my lungs that THIS - this whole system of the super rich, and the corporations they own, fucking over 99% of the rest of the people - MUST END. Its enough to make you wonder why even bother, why suffer this outrageous fortune? I have to also confess that Hamlet makes sense to me now on a whole new level than it used to and 'to be or not to be' likewise has new meaning...)


Ain't "recovery" swell?

[One_Life_To_Give]

5. Too little too late?

6 months ago this would have been good news. Now it may be not enough to help in the election but plenty for the next congress to take credit for.