Corporate layoffs take off in February
Yesterday, I told you that Citigroup, Marsh & McLennan, and Qwest/MCI were going to eliminate thousands and thousands of jobs.
Today, Challenger & Gray reported that American corporations announced a total of 108,387 layoffs and job cuts in February. That's a 17% increase from the 92,351 layoffs in January and a 43% increase from February 2004.
February was also the fifth out of six months in which layoffs have exceeded 100,000.
An interesting tidbit in the Challenger & Gray report was the observation that the increasing amount of merger activity is fueling the layoff increases. In fact, Challenger & Gray said 40% of February's layoffs were directly attributable to mergers.
As long as M&A activity stays strong, the job situation is going to be tough.
http://www.martinweiss.com/Articles/...ticleID=3068#1
