NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - U.S. corporate job cut announcements were surprisingly low in September, an outplacement firm said Wednesday, suggesting the labor market may at least have stopped hemorrhaging jobs -- though it may be too early to declare the start of a recovery.
U.S. companies announced 76,506 job cuts in September, compared with 79,925 in August, according to Chicago outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which publishes a monthly compilation of downsizing plans.
It was the lowest monthly figure since 68,623 in May, and the drop in the number of job cut announcements defied typical seasonal patterns -- normally, the last four months of the year are the worst for job cuts, Challenger, Gray & Christmas CEO John Challenger said.
"Frankly, the September decline was somewhat surprising, considering that the last four months of the year historically have been the heaviest, as employers finalize budgets and business plans for the coming year," Challenger said.
But he also warned that there was a similar drop in job cut announcements in September 2002, followed by 426,000 announcements in the last three months of the year.
"It is probably too early to break out the champagne," Challenger said.
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U.S. non-farm payrolls have shed 2.8 million jobs since a recession began in March 2001, according to Labor Department data. Since that recession ended in November 2001, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, 1.1 million jobs have been lost, leading to the longest period without sustained job growth since 1944-46.
The Labor Department is scheduled Friday to release the change in payrolls in September, along with the national unemployment rate. Economists, on average, expect the reports to say the economy lost another 25,000 jobs and that unemployment rose to 6.2 percent, according to Briefing.com.
Though the economy has shown increasing strength in the third quarter, and many economists expect it to stay relatively strong through 2004, few expect the unemployment rate to fall very far next year, as many employers have learned to do more with fewer workers.
Since Jan. 1, Challenger said, companies have announced a total of 872,080 job cuts, 16 percent lower than the 1.04 million cuts announced in the first nine months of 2002.
Challenger's "industrial goods" category was the biggest job-cutting industry in September, announcing 19,224 layoffs. The "computer" industry announced 7,172 cuts, the automotive industry 5,847, the "food" industry 5,672 and governments and non-profit organizations announced 4,882 cuts.
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