- y/y 11.6% vs -5.9% prior
A near 50% jump in planned layoffs comes after it fell to a 13 year low in December. Unsurprisingly the largest percentage of losses was in retail with national chains looking to cut jobs on the back of weak earnings. 11,394 of the layoffs are attributed to the retail sector. Challenger say that the cuts won’t stop there as the part timers taken on over the holidays are still being shed.
It’s not a big market report and the caveat is that planned layoffs may not actually lead to actual job losses but it does give a clue about the jobs and earnings picture in the retail sector, something that we may see play out this month and next.
