Layoffs Hit Worst Tally in 4 Years

The July report showed that the last time more than 100,000 job cuts were announced was back in September 2011, when there were some 115,730 layoffs.

Another bad trend is that July’s surge now brings the year-to-date job cuts up to a total of 393,368. That is 34% higher than the run rate for the same period in 2014. Also, this is the highest seven-month total since 2009, and that was effectively before the jobs recovery started in the recession.

The only good news here is that over half of the job cuts were the result of massive troop and civilian workforce reductions announced by the United States Army. Those cutbacks are shown to eliminate 57,000 from government payrolls over the next two years.

Still, the report is just as ugly on other fronts as well. The technology sector also announced several major workforce reductions. Job cut announcements came from the likes of Microsoft (via the Nokia division), Qualcomm and Intel. All in all, computer and electronics firms announced 18,891 job cuts in July, though the 25,542 job cuts this year is actually 47% lower than this time last year.

Other key layoff numbers for July were 9,050 from energy, 3,107 from financial, 2,532 from retail, 1,889 from education and 2,320 from transportation.

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