Mass Layoffs Are On The Rise

In a January 9th posting I wrote:

"Having spent years in the business arena, I know that January through March are important months. It is a time when companies assess their business activity over the last 12 months and make decisions on their operations going forward. If they had a good year, they probably won't make any cuts in either operations or people. However, I believe many will have seen the last year as a negative and will, then, decide to make changes that could result in more lost jobs for the months of February, March, and April."

According to a news story by Reuters, the Labor Department is reporting that mass layoffs (50 or more employees being let go at the same time from any single company) rose to 1,761 layoff incidents in January (Click to See Full Story: US Jan mass layoffs edge up on weak manufacturing). This was the first time this had happened since August of last year.

While the Reuters article speculates that the economy is on the "brink of creating jobs", I think we've got a while before that happens. As predicted in my January 9th blog, I think we will continue to see a rise in corporate layoffs. More than that, though, government layoffs are also on the rise. Just today, it was announced that the New York City Transit System and the San Francisco Schools System will shed 1,000 employees each and the State of Georgia is in the process of reviewing potential layoffs to shore up its budget woes. In the corporate arena, today, Pratt & Whitney announced 163 layoffs at two Connecticut plants. Last Sunday, Boeing announced 1,020 new jobs losses. Even ABC News plans 300 layoffs. Additionally, this year, layoffs, totaling, in the thousands were announced at Ford, Viacom, UPS, Fedex, and a variety of other companies.

It also seems like every school system in America has announced some amount of expense cutting layoffs at the end of this school year. Just Google the word "layoff" and you'll see them all. This fact, alone, just shows that the billions of dollars that were spent in Stimulus Money was just a delaying tactic and that many of those questionable teacher, police and fire "saved" jobs might be in jeopardy again; this time for real. I personally think that the unemployment rate may hit 11 percent or higher this year.