February 28, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Initial claims for unemployment insurance due to mass layoffs in January 2008

In January, employers took 1,438 mass layoff actions, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month. Each action involved at least 50 persons from a single employer; the number of workers involved totaled 144,111, on a seasonally adjusted basis.

[Chart data—TXT]

The number of mass layoff events in January 2008 increased by 5 from the prior month, while the number of associated initial claims increased by 2,361. The number of initial claims due to mass layoffs has increased for five consecutive months.

In January, 427 mass layoff events were reported in the manufacturing sector, seasonally adjusted, resulting in 55,488 initial claims. Over the month, mass layoff activity in manufacturing decreased by 35 events, and initial claims decreased by 2,620.

These data are from the Mass Layoff Statistics program. To learn more, see "Mass Layoffs in January 2008" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 08-0260.