The outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas on Thursday released its job-cuts report for March, indicating that layoffs in the month were nearly 22% lower than the February total. The less-good news is that the March 2016 total is nearly 32% higher than a year ago.
The March total of 48,207 layoffs is the lowest since December 2015, but March was the fourth consecutive month in which the year-over-year total has increased.
In the first quarter of 2016, employers announced 184,920 job cuts, up nearly 32% from the 140,241 cuts tracked the first three months of last year. The first quarter saw about 76% more job cuts than the final quarter of 2015, when 105,079 job cuts were recorded.
More than a quarter (27%) of first-quarter job losses were directly attributed to low oil prices. A total of 50,053 job cuts were made in the oil patch, compared with 47,610 in the first quarter of 2015. Job losses for oil-related jobs accounted for 34% of all job cuts in the first quarter.
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John Challenger, the firm’s CEO, said:
Job cuts have slowed since surging in the first two months of the year, but the pace is still well above that of 2015. And, it is not just the energy sector that is seeing heavier job cuts. Layoff announcements have increased significantly in the retail sector and computer sector, as well. While it may be too early to sound the alarm bells, the upward trend outside of the energy sector is somewhat worrisome.
Job cuts in the retail sector rank second behind oil-related job cuts for the quarter, with 31,832, up 41% from the 22,502 announced in the first three months of 2015. The 17,002 job cuts in the computer sector are 148% higher than a year ago, when these firms announced 6,860 job cuts in the first quarter.
Other industry totals include 2,404 job cuts in the aerospace/defense industry, down by more than a third year over year in the first quarter. Boeing has said it plans to cut about 4,000 jobs through attrition and voluntary buyouts, but the total could go to double that.
The auto industry has cut 4,746 jobs in the first quarter of 2016, compared with just 1,638 in the year ago period.
On the brighter side, announced hiring plans for March totaled 10,997 new hires. Challenger reported that the United States added nearly 27,000 jobs in the first quarter of 2016.
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