U.S. employers – including Hartford’s Aetna Inc. — announced 50,349 planned job cuts in November, the fewest in two years, according to outplacement consultant Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
November saw the lowest number of monthly job cuts since 44,416 were announced in December 2007.
November also marked the fourth consecutive monthly decline in job cuts, Challenger Gray said.
The November total was 9.6 percent lower than the 55,679 job cuts announced in October. November job cuts were down sharply from a year ago, falling 72 percent from last November’s 181,671 job cuts, which was the highest monthly total of 2008.
Aetna announced last month plans to cut 675 jobs nationwide, 160 of which would be in Connecticut.
“Most industries are seeing job cuts subside,” said Challenger Gray CEO John A. Challenger. “Barring any unexpected shocks to the economy, we appear to be coming out of the woods when it comes to downsizing. Unfortunately, the second half of the job-market equation – hiring – has not shown any signs of an imminent rebound.”
Last month’s decline continues a dramatic slowdown in the pace of job cutting in the second half of this year. Since July 1, employers have announced an average of 69,252 job cuts per month. In contrast, the average monthly job-cut total from January through June was 149,446.
