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[1/2] People queue outside a newly reopened career center for in-person appointments in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., April 15, 2021. REUTERS/Amira KaraoudMarch 9 (Reuters) - Layoffs by U.S. companies over January and February touched the highest since 2009, with the tech sector accounting for more than a third of the over 180,000 job cuts announced, a report showed on Thursday. In February alone, layoffs in the United States stood at 77,770, more than five times higher than the 15,245 job cuts announced a year earlier, according to the report from employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.Reuters Graphics"Right now, the overwhelming bulk of cuts are occurring in Technology. Retail and Financial are also cutting right now, as consumer spending matches economic conditions," said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of the firm. U.S. firms announced plans to hire 28,830 workers in February, down 87% from 215,127 a year earlier, the report added.

☆ February jobs preview: What to expect after January’s blowout report
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Minneapolis CNN —January’s jobs report delivered a heck of a surprise when it showed the US economy had added more than half a million jobs and unemployment had dipped to a level not seen in more than five decades. But economists say they are not bracing for another blindside when the February jobs report comes out on Friday. “I think most economists were comfortable dismissing the January jobs data as an anomaly,” Aaron Terrazas, Glassdoor’s chief economist, told CNN. “If we get a second strong jobs report [on Friday], it’s no longer an anomaly,” Terrazas added. Seasonality, benchmarking and the interplay of pandemic-era data don’t completely explain away January’s blockbuster jobs report, economists say, noting there are likely influences from the currently tight labor market.

☆ U.S. layoffs surged in January as tech slashed thousands of jobs - report
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Samrhitha A | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Feb 2 (Reuters) - Layoffs in the United States hit a more than two-year high in January as technology firms cut jobs at the second-highest pace on record to brace for a possible recession, a report showed on Thursday. The push to correct pandemic excesses has been most evident in the tech sector, which slashed 41,829 jobs last month, the highest across industries. Reuters GraphicsRetailers, second after tech, cut 13,000 positions in January, compared with virtually no layoffs a year earlier. Financial firms, meanwhile, shed 10,603 jobs last month, up from 696 roles a year earlier. Reporting by Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini GanguliOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ U.S. weekly jobless claims fall; layoffs surge in January
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The claims report showed the number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, fell 11,000 to 1.655 million during the week ending Jan. 21. The raft of layoffs in the technology sector pushed up job cuts in January. A separate report on Thursday from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed job cuts announced by U.S.-based employers surged 136% to 102,943. The technology sector accounted for 41% of the job cuts, with 41,829 layoffs. Retailers announced 13,000 job cuts, while financial firms planned to lay off 10,603 workers.

☆ Too many companies botch mass layoffs
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Jeanne Sahadi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

When it comes to mass layoffs, there seems to be no end to the worst, most bungled ways in which some employees first learn they are being let go. “People have to feel they’re being treated with respect,” said Sarah Rodehorst, CEO of Onwards HR, an offboarding technology platform for human resources, legal and finance teams. (Google declined to comment, pointing instead to a blog post from the CEO on the day of the layoffs.) Employees should receive a communication from the CEO or from division leadership that informs them layoffs will occur and offers them the business reasons for the decision. By “small,” Lee means no more than 5 to 10 people, including a leader or manager they know who delivers the news.

In a note to employees, CEO Satya Nadella attempted to address the divergent outlook for different parts of the business. Nadella said the layoffs, affecting less than 5% of Microsoft's workforce, would conclude by the end of March, with notifications beginning Wednesday. Along with Amazon, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) announced cuts of 11,000 jobs, while cloud-based software company Salesforce Inc (CRM.N) said it would cut 10% of its 80,000-member workforce. Under U.S. law, most employers are required to report staff cuts affecting 50 or more workers at a single location. But growth dropped to 35% in the first fiscal quarter of 2023, and the company projects more declines to come.

The layoffs, far larger than cuts by Microsoft last year, add to the tens of thousands of job cuts across the technology sector, which has downshifted following a strong growth period during the pandemic. Nadella said the layoffs, affecting less than 5% of Microsoft's workforce, would conclude by the end of March, with notifications beginning Wednesday. The cuts reflect broader belt-tightening in the technology sector. The CEO of another company serving enterprises, Palantir Technologies Inc (PLTR.N), this week told Reuters that reducing cloud spending was a top-ten priority for his customers. Microsoft's cloud revenues soared in recent years from an explosion in corporate demand to host data online and handle computing in the so-called cloud.

☆ What to expect at work this year
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Jeanne Sahadi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

New York CNN —The pandemic has transformed work over the past three years in ways few expected. Work flexibility is here to stay, and may improve for front-line workersWhile there is still tension between executives and employees about how many days people should be physically present at work, hybrid work and work flexibility isn’t going away. “The big shift is in recognizing our work force is in trouble,” McRae said. Roughly 70% of workers say they’re already doing work outside of their job, according to Deloitte. One recent example, cited in Deloitte’s latest work report, comes from M&T Bank, a leading Small Business Administration lender.

☆ Tech firms lead companies with most December job cuts, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Michael S. Derby | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, Jan 5 (Reuters) - American technology firms dominated the number of announced job cuts in December, as some employers downsized workforces to brace for the prospect of difficult economic times looming ahead. The planned pace of layoffs in December was well above the 19,052 cuts announced in December 2021, the report said. For all of 2022, the report said there were 363,824 planned layoffs, up 13% from 2021. Tech companies, which have been facing rising challenges and withering stock prices, bore the brunt of the December planned job cuts, with 16,193. The report said that tech companies led announced job cuts for all of 2022, at 97,171 planned layoffs.

☆ Tech jobs hit the hardest by layoffs last year: Report
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

That's up 649% from the nearly 13,000 tech jobs that were cut in 2021, the report said. Overall last year, employers across industries announced plans to cut nearly 364,000 jobs, according to the report — a 13% increase from the year prior. Still, the figure represents a relatively low number of job cuts in a year. Challenger said it's the second-lowest recorded total job cut announcements since it began tracking them in 1993, with the lowest occurring in 2021. The more than 10,000 fintech job cuts in 2022 represents a 1,670% increase from the 529 announced in 2021, Challenger said.

☆ What to expect from the jobs report on Friday
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Minneapolis CNN —Friday’s jobs report is expected to show that the US economy added 200,000 jobs in December, with the unemployment rate holding steady for the third-straight month at 3.7%. “The preponderance of evidence suggests that the labor market is still nowhere near back to normal,” said Julia Pollak, senior economist with ZipRecruiter online employment marketplace. Historically tightThe US labor market remains atypically tight — something that was reinforced Wednesday when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report for November. It showed there were still north of 10.5 million job openings, or about 1.7 available positions for every unemployed person looking for work. “But it’s unclear how far inflation can fall without the labor market deteriorating, or rather, it’s not clear what the underlying pace of inflation is with the labor market this tight.”—CNN’s Matt Egan contributed to this report.

☆ Here's how to know if your company's layoff policy is a 'good' one
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Mikaela Cohen | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

1 piece of advice when given a layoff offer is to not sign any document on the spot when you're first notified. After you've had time to process the emotional, financial, and mental changes that a layoff brings, here's how to know whether your company's layoff offer is a good one or not, and if it's time to negotiate for a better one. "If it's paid out in a lump sum, sometimes it's nice to get your layoff money and find a new job," Bryan said. If you're still getting a check from the company, Bryan said you can still say you're employed at the company on your resume. "If you were valuable to the company, you might be able to get additional money, or ask for additional money," Bryan said.

☆ Companies reining in holiday bonuses
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

This year, economic uncertainty is bringing a chill to the holiday-season perk, according to survey data released Thursday by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. More than 81% of the 252 employers surveyed by the outplacement firm said they planned to freeze the value of holiday bonuses at the same level of last year, while a growing number of companies said they would forgo a bonus altogether. Nearly 27% of companies surveyed said they wouldn’t give a bonus, which is up from 23% in 2021. “We’re clearly seeing some softening in the labor market,” Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, told CNN. “We’ve been in the tightest labor market in modern American history [with] the lowest level of layoffs, the highest wage increases, the highest number of job openings, the highest number of jobs quit,” Challenger said.

Overall, U.S.-based firms announced 76,835 job cuts in November, led by the technology sector. So current employees want to be in a position to quickly grab a new job. watch nowExperts say some of the motivation for career cushioning may also be coming from employees in search of a position that better aligns with their values. So employees are “kind of playing it out in their job currently waiting for something better to come along and actively searching,” she said. To calm employees, 'be clear' about layoff plansIn a similar fashion to the trend around “quiet quitting,” career cushioning may also come at the expense of productivity.

☆ A recession could hit white-collar workers the hardest. Here’s why
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Alison Kosik | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN Business —White collar workers would be hit harder than blue collar workers if the United States enters a recession soon, according to one economist, who said businesses have undergone a dramatic restructuring after the pandemic. “Covid shifted things around,” said William Lee, chief economist at the Milken Institute. The pandemic has accelerated automation, Lee said, and that’s pushing low-skilled white collar workers out of jobs. Those tend to be high-paying, more white-collared jobs, Challenger said. “Tech companies hired a lot over the past year and a half and they’re going through what seems to be a correction,” he said.

☆ A recession would likely hit white collar workers more, economists say
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Alison Kosik | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

☆ U.S. weekly jobless claims fall; layoffs pick up in October
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 217,000 for the week ended Oct. 29, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 220,000 claims for the latest week. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that the labor market "remains extremely tight," and "continues to be out of balance." The claims report also showed the number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, rose 47,000 to 1.485 million in the week ending Oct. 22. Still, announced layoffs so far this year are down 16% to243,338, the lowest January-October total since Challenger began tracking the series in 1993.

☆ What to expect from Friday’s jobs report
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-06 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

The US economy is forecast to have added 250,000 jobs in September, which would be the lowest monthly jobs gain since December 2020. August jobs data already indicated that the historically tight labor market has loosened by a notch. The jobs report for that month found that America added 315,000 positions, a much lower level than the 512,000 average job gains over the past 12 months. The unemployment rate will likely have to rise despite these downward demographic pressures, and that likely would have to come from people losing their jobs. It’s not going to be a painless slow grind.”The September jobs report is among the key economic data that Fed policymaking officials will review when they meet in early November to discuss how to stifle stubbornly high inflation.

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