|
Job cuts hit 3-year high
|
 |
February 8, 1999: 11:08 a.m. ET
Nearly 80,000 jobs lost in January, up 10% from last year and highest since 1996
|
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Job cuts last month rose to their highest level in three years, as Corporate America embraced efficiency as emerging-market pressures weighed down on the retail and manufacturing sectors.
According to research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an international outplacement firm that tracks job cuts, nearly 80,000 jobs were lost in January, that's up 10 percent from last year. It also represents the biggest drop since January 1996 when 97,379 workers were let go.
For the five-month period, nearly 400,000 workers were cut from the payrolls.
"If your company announced plans in January to cut jobs, odds are about 1 in 8 that you were or will be affected," said John A. Challenger, chief executive of the firm. "This is, by far, the heaviest stretch of job cutting we have recorded since we began tracking job-cut announcements in 1989."
He noted the cuts come at a time when economic growth "appears to be virtually unstoppable" and said that while economic turmoil in Asia and Latin America have not directly affected the U.S. economy, it has hurt pricing power and forced exporters to make "significant payroll cuts to stay competitive."
Connecticut and California led the list of state's with the highest reductions, with a combined 38,643 job cuts.
The latest wave of payroll cuts are affecting the managerial and executive ranks most, according to the fourth-quarter Job Market Index. The report showed the median salary of discharged managers and executives rose 18 percent to $92,000, compared to $78,000 in the third quarter.
Year-to-date, the retail sector was hit the hardest, with some 26,000 job cuts announced. The financial sector came in second, cutting more than 13,000 jobs. 
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
