Job cuts in the housing industry jumped in the first quarter and almost matched the number of cuts in all of 2006, an outplacement consultancy said last week.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. reported that job cuts in housing, including real estate, construction and mortgage lending, soared 346 percent to 21,245 in the first quarter, compared with 4,764 job cuts in the same quarter last year. The first-quarter number barely trails the total number of jobs cuts in 2006 of 22,814. In 2005, the housing industry slashed only 13,656 jobs. n
