Job Cuts Continue to Rise

Announcements by major U.S. firms climbs for second straight month, employment firm says.
CNN: June 1, 2004: 10:13 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The number of job cuts planned by U.S. employers rose for the second straight month in May as firms announced plans to cut more than 73,000 jobs, an outplacement firm said Tuesday.

U.S. businesses announced 73,368 job cuts in May, up from 72,184 job cuts in April, a gain of 1.6 percent, according to Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which keeps track of monthly job-cut announcements.

May's announcements were 6.9 percent higher than those of May 2003, when 68,623 cuts were announced.

Through the first five months of 2004, employers have announced 408,392 job cuts, an average of 81,678 per month, or about 28 percent lower than the 114,163 pace in the first five months of 2003.

But the 12-month moving average of announcements rose to 89,500 from 89,105 in April, the first gain in the moving average since December.

And the number of job-cut announcements per month remains well above pre-recession levels of about 51,000 per month, CEO John Challenger said in a release.

So we added 700,000 jobs in the last quarter and lost more than 400,000 of them? That's a grand total of +300,000. At that rate, it will take 10 years to replace the 3,000,000 jobs lost during the Bush's first three years. Or one Democratic administration. (To read the rest, click the title. Or better yet, click the link below and also get a related article and Melanie's comments.)

(Thanks to Just a Bump in the Beltway))