Companies slashed 742,000 workers in March in a report by ADP Employer Services. February's reading was revised to 706,000 from previously estimated 697,000 job cuts.. These are the worst numbers since ADP started keeping records in 2001.
This was the 15th straight month of job losses, putting total losses at more than five million. Some analysts see more job cuts going forward for several months. To underscore the severity of the present situation, the ADP report was forecast to show only 665,000 jobs lost.
The government report due on April 3rd may show a decline of 658,000 job losses and unemployment rising to a 25 year high of 8.5%.
Here are some specifics of the ADP report:
- Job cuts by US employers nearly tripled in March.
- Firing announcements rose by 181% from March 2008 to 150,411
- The ADP report showed a reduction of 327,000 workers in goods producing industries.
- Employment in manufacturing dropped by 206,000
- Service providers cut 415,000 workers.
- Companies employing more that 499 workers shrank their workforce by 128,000
- Medium businesses with 50 to 499 employees cut 330,000 jobs.
- Small companies decreased payrolls by 284,000.
- Industries cutting jobs ranged from automakers to high tech to materials makers to service companies.
We can only hope that this is the trough and that a slow but steady improvement will start soon.
Do you believe that we have reached bottom as far as job cuts are concerned?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-01-2009 @ 3:20PM
Uri said...
These statistics are especially interesting to the US economy for jobs which can be exported. A major hurdle to exporting jobs and/or companies (through competition) is the existing expertise carried by Americans and the challenges of moving workers overseas. These industries will likely recover but at that point there won't be as many obstacles for those jobs to be outsourced so many will likely, through the recession, not return to American soil in the near future.
4-01-2009 @ 4:21PM
Iridium said...
The only way out of this mess is massive tax cuts. Unless we put more money in the pockets of business and individuals we will continue to shed jobs until there are none left.
If consumer spending makes up 70% of the economy or more any job lost is a loss in consumer spending. This means less goods bought and sold and less jobs.
You can't come back unless people have more money. They can't get more money if corporations are slashing jobs. The only way to get more money is to stop taking so much from them in the first place.
4-01-2009 @ 6:30PM
clikdawg said...
Iridium --
But the whole point of the exercise is to drive wages down through the floor by developing an enormous pool of guys waiting in line for each and every job: Those in the pool act as a constant threat to those who hold the job ("I got 350 guys right outside the door would LOVE to take over for you, Murphy, you don't like the way we do things around here ... ") -- they'll accept any wages and working conditions necessary to undercut the incumbent.
Erosion of national per capita purchasing power doesn't matter, because all REAL wealth is gained through creative bookkeeping schemes -- those at the top will flourish economically whether the whole rest of the country is eating shoe leather or not.
So why not just go on ahead and force the middle class into peonage? It'll be fun to watch all those used-to-was wage-earners having to knuckle their foreheads whenever we walk by! (That's when we're visiting The States, of course, after following our work force to Some Other Country where we can live like kings without fear of successful reprisal.)
And the Great Leap Forward (US version) goes marching on ...