Investing November 4, 2002

Challenger Finds October Job Cuts Skyrocketing

November 4, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - In a stark turnaround from September, planned job cuts jumped to 176,010 in October - at a rate of 7,600 per day, according to an outplacement firm.
Reported by

Challenger, Gray & Christmas said the October total is this year’s second highest behind January’s 212,704 and a dramatic 151% higher than September’s 70,057. (See  Planned Job Cut Figure Plummets in September ).

September’s total was the lowest since November 2000, the Challenger survey said

October¹s figure may have jumped from September, but Challenger pointed out that it is 27% lower than October, 2001 (242,192).

Year-to-date job-cut announcements in 2002 are also down 27% from last year.  Through October, 1,180,627 job cuts have been announced compared to 1,613,880 last year.

 While the pace of job cutting has declined from a year ago, when the terrorist attacks impacted all industries, certain areas continue to struggle, especially the battered technology sector which accounted for 34% of October job cuts.

Telecommunications and computers were the top two job-cutting industries during the month, combining 51,644 job cuts.  Another 7,942 job cuts were announced by electronics and e-commerce companies, for a technology sector total of 59,586.

«