Planned Job Cuts Hit 10-Year Low in August

Chicago, IL, Sept. 1, 2010--The number of planned layoffs at U.S. firms decreased 17% in August from July and hit the lowest level in 10 years, according to outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

Employers announced 34,768 planned job cuts last month, down from 41,676 in July.

It was the first month-on-month decline since April, when planned job losses had hit a seven-year low, and the lowest level since June 2000.

Although unemployment remains high, at 9.5% in July, job security appears to be strong, the report said.

"To put this in perspective, job cuts never fell to these levels following the 2001 recession, not even when the economy was reaping the rewards of the housing boom," John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a press release.

"You have to go all the way back to the expansion of the late 1990s and early 2000 to find a similar pace of downsizing," he said.

Overall, employers have announced 374,121 job cuts since the start of 2010, down from the 1,020,504 layoffs announced in the first eight months of 2009.

The August total is down 55% from a year earlier, when 76,456 job cuts were announced.