Layoffs Decreasing Nationwide; Florida Still Struggling
MIAMI (CBSMiami.com) – The jobs picture improved nationwide in August as the number of layoffs dropped 23 percent from July, according to consultants Challenger, Gray, & Christmas, Inc.
The drop in August followed three straight months of increases in job cuts. But, even with the decreases, the August job cuts of 51,114 were up 47 percent from the same time last month.
Overall this year, the state of Florida ranks as the fifth-worst state for announced layoffs at 18,098. California led the way followed by: the District of Columbia; New Jersey; and Michigan.
Since January 1, U.S. employers have announced 363,334 planned layoffs. This is roughly in line with the job cut totals of 2010, which isn't good news as the government seeks to jumpstart the struggling U.S. economy.
"July job cuts spiked as a result of a handful of surprisingly large job-cut announcements in the private sector," said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray, & Christmas. "It is too soon to tell whether those cuts were an anomaly, but they appeared to be driven by industry- and company-specific trends, as opposed to larger economic ones."
The public sector has laid of the most people so far this year, more than doubling the next biggest layoff group, retail. All total, government/non-profit agencies have laid off 105,406 workers in 2011. Combined with last year, the government/non-profit industry has shed more than 217,784 workers.
The top five reasons given this year for job cuts have been: cost-cutting; restructuring; closing; economic conditions; and voluntary severance.
When it comes to which companies hired the most workers in August, the list was: automotive; computer; education; services; and industrial goods.
