Autor: notíCIas_pt
Data: 05-10-2004 09:04
Job-cut plans jump in September
Companies announce highest number of cuts since January, according to survey; hiring plans fall.
October 5, 2004: 10:00 AM EDT
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The number of job cuts planned by U.S. employers jumped to an eight-month high in September, while hiring announcements fell sharply, an outplacement firm said Tuesday.
The report came just days before the government's critical gauges of unemployment and job growth in September, but did little to clarify how strong those measures would be.
U.S. businesses announced 107,863 job cuts in September, up from 74,150 job cuts in August, a gain of 45 percent, according to Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which keeps track of monthly job-cut announcements.
It was the worst month for job-cut announcements since January, when 117,556 cuts were announced. September's job-cut plans were 41 percent higher than the 76,506 cuts announced in September 2003.
Meanwhile, companies announced plans to add just 16,166 new jobs, compared with 132,105 in August.
"Historically, the period from September 1 through December 31 is when we see the heaviest downsizing, and this year appears to be on track to repeat that trend," the firm's CEO, John Challenger, said in a statement.
Challenger added, however, that the end of the year are also usually a good time for hiring -- meaning that the weak level of announcements in September "are not a good indication of stronger job creation to come."
The job-cut announcements that Challenger tracks include plans to let workers take early retirement. Many of the announced job cuts don't take place in the month they're announced, but several months later.
Challenger's job-cut announcement tally is also not seasonally adjusted. It was not clear what seasonal factors, if any, affected September cuts this year. In fact, in recent years, many more job cuts are announced in October than in September.
On Friday, the Labor Department is scheduled to report on September unemployment and non-farm payroll growth. Economists, on average, expect the jobless rate to hold steady at 5.4 percent and for about 150,000 new jobs to have been created, compared with 144,000 in August, according to Briefing.com.
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