Chart of the Day: Layoff massacres persist

By Prieur du Plessis, on September 24th, 2009 posted in: Economy, Investment

There are green shoots of different shapes and sizes everywhere, but not on the employment front. The chart below comes courtesy of Clusterstock – Business Insider and shows the number of mass layoffs according to the BLS’s latest survey. Mass layoffs are defined as distinct events where 50 or more employees get retrenched at a single company. In short, “After some glints of hope in July, it just spiked right back up in August.”

Source: Joe Weisenthal and Kamelia Angelova, Clusterstock – Business Insider, September 23, 2009.

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Mr. Obvious

September 24, 2009 at 2:41 pm

Yeah, the August bounce is troubling, but in getting back to basics, it’s still a case of a lower low, and–so far, at least–a lower high. Also, while actual mass layoffs are more important than ANNOUNCED layoffs, the Challenger Layoff Announcements data is supportive (still in strong downtrend) of lower future actual layoffs.