WASHINGTON — There were 58,877 layoff intentions announced in September, up from 41,186 in August and from 30,477 in September 2014, job placement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, Inc. said in a report released Thursday.
The data are not seasonally adjusted.
Layoffs in September were led by the computer sector, which reported 32,500 job cuts in the month, the largest one-month total for the sector since 1993. About 30,000 of those cuts came from Hewlett-Packard.
Total cuts for the third quarter, at 205,759, were up sharply from the previous quarter's 181,213 total, and was the largest total for a quarter since the third quarter of 2009.
So far in 2015, there have been 493,431 cuts announced. With three months left in the year, cuts in 2015 have already exceeded the 483,171 cuts announced in all of 2014.
"Job cuts have already surpassed last year's total and are on track to end the year as the highest annual total since 2009, when nearly 1.3 million layoffs were announced at the tail-end of the recession, " said John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Challenger noted that the energy sector drove much of the job cutting in 2015. Low oil prices had a large impact of that sector, but also drove declines in other sectors as well. While energy cuts have slowed in the latter half of the year, demand for manufactured goods, especially from China, may continue to decline, spurring further job cuts.
In other data released, there were 492,306 hiring intentions in September, with 335,160 coming from the retail sector and another 150,000 coming from the transportation sector. Both large gains are the first in a series of seasonal hiring boosts that usually start in September and continue to a lesser extent through November. So far, the largest hiring plans have come from UPS, Macy's, and Kohl's.
In September 2014, the retail sector announced 409,162 hiring plans, while the transportation sector announced 145,200, so 2015 represents some improvement from last year on the seasonal hiring front.
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