January Layoffs Up 21% to 53,000

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 11:48AM EST · Published Jan 31, 7:00AM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

January Layoffs Up 21% to 53,000 — © Thinkstock

In a worrying start to the year, major companies laid off 52,988 workers in January, up 20.7% from December and up 18.7% from January a year ago. The data show a mixed trend. Long term, January 2019 numbers were better than for most January stats in the past several years. However, compared to most monthly totals for the past two years, regardless of the month, the figure was weak, according to research firm Challenger Gray & Christmas.

In specific, January’s number is lower than the average of 86,347 cuts announced during the month of January since 1993. However, it is higher than 20 of the past 24 monthly totals.

Commenting on the trend Andrew Challenger, vice president at Challenger, Gray, said:

Employers are continuing the trend of reducing staff that we saw in the fourth quarter of last year, as several industries pivot to emerging technologies. Companies are battling economic uncertainty and, while consumer confidence was high, consumer spending missed estimates at major retailers during the holiday season.

[nativounit]

This is among a growing body of evidence that the economy has started to slow. Consumer confidence dipped recently, according to sources like the Conference Board. Retail sales at many major chains were poor over the holidays. The earnings season has been mixed, with many companies missing targets. Trade relations with China have started to hurt both economies. A government shutdown shaved a meaningful amount from GDP growth for the first quarter.

The largest job cuts for the month were in the retail sector, and the sector itself did poorly. In fact, it leads all parts of the economy in job cuts during January with 22,327, which is 45% higher than last year. Gymboree’s plan to liquidate remaining stores in the United States and Canada accounted for roughly 10,000 jobs.

Challenger added:

Financial firms announced the second-highest number of planned cuts with 4,230, followed by the Automotive sector, which announced 3,949, and Entertainment/Leisure companies that announced 3,533 planned cuts.

Industry	18-Jan	18-Dec	19-Jan
Aerospace/Defense	295	3,271	1,735
Apparel	0	0	122
Automotive	703	2,058	3,949
Chemical	65	151	247
Construction	69	0	95
Consumer Products	7,158	949	2,074
Education	135	603	58
Electronics	571	241	0
Energy	1,129	717	247
Entertainment/Leisure	440	1,591	3,533
Financial	637	848	4,230
FinTech	N/A	N/A	186
Food	1,286	2,409	1,339
Government	328	1,157	661
Health Care/Products	6,531	4,665	1,780
Industrial Goods	964	2,684	2,283
Insurance	428	0	370
Legal	0	0	0
Media	855	3,599	1,279
Mining	153	60	144
Non-Profit	36	193	53
Pharmaceutical	976	5,135	539
Real Estate	55	110	78
Retail	15,378	2,059	22,327
Services	3,212	6,352	2,530
Technology	756	1,008	638
Telecommunications	951	50	461
Transportation	1,472	3,463	1,315
Utility	70	84	0
Warehousing	0	427	715
TOTAL	44,653	43,884	52,988

Source: Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.
[recirclink id=524816]
[wallst_email_signup]

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.