It’s a slow summer… for job cuts

Economists were watching for signs of slower job-creation and smaller wage-gains in the July jobs report — both of which happened, thanks to rising interest rates and recent hiring trends. 

One thing we haven’t seen much lately is big job cuts, as unemployment claims hover near pre-pandemic lows, and companies announce fewer layoffs.  

Layoff announcements did spike earlier this year — especially in interest rate-sensitive sectors like tech and finance. But they’ve now fallen to the lowest level in nearly a year, said Andy Challenger at outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. 

“Lots of smaller firms doing small layoffs, I am seeing less of those big headline announcements from Fortune 500 companies.”

It’s a different story for folks who have been laid off, said Jim McCoy at staffing firm ManpowerGroup.

“We’re seeing a lot of those individuals being picked up fairly quickly in medium-sized companies,” he said.

Even as business slows, McCoy said companies are loathe to lay anyone off. Instead they’re cutting back on contract workers or part-timers.

“Preserving the teams that they have in place,” said McCoy. “Because they really learned a lesson about how expensive it is to replace people when they have mass layoffs.”

And it’s still a job-seeker’s market — with significantly more jobs available than there are people looking for work.