Tired of GOOD economic news? Try this: Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported job cut plans rose to 171,874 in October vs. 76,506 the previous month. This is the highest pace of announcements since October ’02 when 176,010 job cuts were announced. Challenger says that “With factors like technology, outsourcing and consolidation working against job creation, any job market rebound we see in the near future will be relatively small.” Layoff announcements were widespread. Six sectors had layoffs exceeding 10,000 , indicating broad based lay off plans. Not news that is needed for a sustainable recovery.
Late Add Keep in mind that this data is fed to an employment agency and the people giving data want to hire people at the lowest possible wage. It follows that an employment agency will be deliberately fed data that will show the fewest possible openings. This agency is not famous for delivering data that turns out to be accurate. The reason people picked it up is that a CBS Market Watch writer picked it up.