Job cuts rise again
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February 6, 2001: 10:44 a.m. ET
Survey reports January job cuts increase 6% over December levels
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - U.S. employers eliminated 142,208 jobs last month, a 6 percent increase over December levels, according to a survey released Tuesday.
The survey by outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc. is the latest evidence of the slowing economy. The firm said that December, which saw 133,713 jobs lost, and January marked the first time since the survey began in 1993 that job cuts exceeded 100,000 for two months in a row.
January job cuts were 181 percent above January 2000 levels, when cuts totaled 50,655.
"Job security has suffered a severe shock, plunging seemingly out of the blue from a let-the-good-times-roll economy to 275,000 announced job cuts in 60 days," said John A. Challenger, the firm's CEO.
"It appears that companies have already been heavily impacted by the slowing economy or are preparing for the worst through deep cuts in payroll costs," he said.
The report comes days after the U.S. government reported that the unemployment rate edged up to 4.2 percent in January from 4.0 percent in December, amid rising layoffs in the auto industry and other manufacturing sectors.
The Challenger report noted that the auto industry sustained the deepest cuts last month, surging to 34,959 compared with 1,190 in January 2000.
The report found that the telecom industry slashed 22,060 jobs, up from 3,893 a year earlier. Retailers cut 15,344 positions, down from 25,738 in the same month of 2000. Internet retailers dumped 11,887 positions in January, as e-commerce companies continued to shutter or scale down operations.
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