Job cuts announced by U.S. employers declined for the second consecutive month in March, falling 19.3 percent to 150,411 from 186,350 in February, global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said today.
The March figure was the lowest since last October, when 112,884 planned job cuts were announced, Chicago-based Challenger Gray said. It comes on the heels of a 23 percent decline in February. This marks the first two-month decrease in job cuts since February-March 2007.
Despite the downward trend, job cuts are still well above the pace of a year ago. Last month’s total was 181 percent higher than March 2008, when job cuts hit the lowest level of the year (53,579). Overall, first-quarter job cuts of 578,510 are 188 percent higher than the 200,656 job cuts announced in the first three months of 2008.
Employers in the government/non-profit sector saw the heaviest downsizing in March, with 25,324 announced job cuts. The second-ranked pharmaceutical industry announced plans to cut 17,796, most of which will come following Merck’s acquisition of Schering-Plough.Â
Meanwhile, the financial industry experienced a relatively low 8,651 job cuts. That was down 36 percent from a February figure of 13,550 and well below last year’s average of 21,676 announced cuts per month.
“The good news is that job cuts appear to be stabilizing in the financial sector,” said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger Gray. “Unfortunately, other sectors are seeing an increase in cuts as the recession works its way through the economy. State and local governments across the country are struggling with falling tax revenues as more and more people lose their jobs and homes,”
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