More bad news from the job market. The UPI is reporting that US layoffs have reached a five year high:
Job cuts in the United States reached a five-year high in October, a private research group said Wednesday.
Downsizing has eliminated 875,974 jobs for the year, 14 percent higher than the total announced job cuts for 2007, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-headquartered outplacement consultancy, said.
In October, job cuts reached 112,884, a 19 percent increase over September and 79 percent higher than October 2007.
In layoff announcements, the financial sector topped the list with 17,949, followed by the automobile industry, which announced 15,692. In 2008, these sectors have announced a total of 239,760 layoffs, 27 percent of all layoff announcements, the report said.
Those Cube Rules Members watching the Layoff Central report have seen this through individual company announcements.
The numbers, I expect, will continue to get worse before they get better. I have been watching some leading indicator charts and they are not yet improving.
For those in jobs, keep building accomplishments and job skills – and ensure your network is in good shape through your communications with them.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
There is so much ‘bad news’ around job cuts, downturn etc that if you keep following the stories it consumes you and stops you acting out of fear or an attitude of “well whats the point?”
As you suggest, it’s much wiser to stay focussed on solutions instead of all the problems. Doing some self analysis to get clear about all the skills and talents you offer, understanding what value you offer to current and future employers and packaging that message to meet the changing needs of your current and future employers.
That’s what every forward thinking business is to doing to survive - revaluating itself and then repositioning itself to meet changing needs of the market. So as the CEO of You Inc, it’s exactly what individuals should be doing to manage their careers during this period.
Individuals that are proactive enough to read blogs like this, take some action and make changes can potentially thrive and be the winners in this market. The downturn could in fact be the best thing that ever happened to their career. Those that sit around watching and worrying about the bad news stories will unfortunately find themselves become the victims of the downturn.
@Sital - this is a very accurate comment, Sital, and right on point.
When Katrina happened, I watched the news constantly for about three days and then I had to turn it off. I couldn’t leave me state to help, there was nothing I could do about it except watch — and I had gained the same hopelessness sense that the victims there got from the response.
When I moved to something I could control — helping one of the families that moved to my state from New Orleans — that feeling of hopelessness dissipated.
This doesn’t discount the strategy. But it is easy to flow right into “nothing matters” when, in fact, what you can control and influence matters a great deal.
Great comment for all the readers here. Thanks.