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The US Just Had the Most Q1 Layoffs in a Decade (axios.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

The U.S. saw its highest level of layoffs in a first quarter since 2009, data from staffing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas released this week showed. From a report: Employers cut 190,410 jobs in the first 3 months of the year -- 10.3% higher than the number of layoffs announced in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 35.6% higher than job cuts announced in the same quarter of 2018. It's the highest number of job cuts in a quarter since 2015. The financial industry saw the third highest number of layoffs and the year-to-date total was 239% higher than it was in 2018.

5 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. What did you expect? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    The President behave erratically
    The Markets interpret this as a cause for uncertainty
    The Employers see a Risk and mitigate it by reducing expenses via headcount

    This isn't rocket science and that fact is demonstrated by how earnestly every single prior President in the past several decades has worked to instill market confidence

  2. Well actually that is correct by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is strange. Didn't the President of the United States tell us he was creating more jobs than any President ever?

    Lets see, you can choose to think about only number of jobs lost (although how many are truly lost, vs. just people being laid off...), while ignoring jobs created...

    Of course if you do that, you don't actually know the total, do you?

    Yep, more Fake News. What a surprise. *rolls eyes*.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Well actually that is correct by flippy · · Score: 5, Informative

      From an analysis perspective, you can, in fact, only look at jobs lost. The original article is comparing apples to apples - job cuts in 2018Q1 vs job cuts in other recent quarters. It's not making a comment on the total job market or even attempting to. It's simply an analysis of job cuts only.

  3. Re:news of jobs created/lost news is bankrupt by flippy · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you read the original article, it is an analysis solely of job cuts, and not of the overall health of the economy or of the job market.

    In that regard, it is a completely valid analysis. Anything else anyone wants to read into it is on them.

  4. Total down, not just layoffs up by XXongo · · Score: 5, Informative

    You have to compare statistics over the same period.

    The article is about the first quarter 2019: that is, January through March. The job statistics for the first quarter are poor, mainly due to an absolutely terrible jobs report in February: https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit... First quarter 2019 is significantly down in employment compared to the 2018 average.

    The guy saying "fake news *rolls eyes*", however did the old switcheroo: he is just talking about March. March did bounce back... although it would be hard to not bounce back after such a low report for February, and it's still not even as high even as the average for 2018.