November 16, 2006 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Reasons for extended layoff separations, third quarter of 2006

Layoffs due to the completion of a contract resulted in 28,005 separations due to extended mass layoffs in the third quarter of 2006.

Reason for layoff: Extended mass layoff separations, private nonfarm sector, third quarter, 2006
[Chart data—TXT]

Contract completion layoffs were most numerous among workers in administrative and support services (such as professional employer organizations and temporary help services) and in specialty trade contractors (such as residential framing contractors).

Seasonal work was the reason given for extended mass layoffs resulting in 24,627 separations.

Internal company restructuring (due to bankruptcy, business ownership change, financial difficulty, or reorganization) resulted in 40,295 separations. Reorganization within the company accounted for over half of the separations associated with such restructuring. The internal company restructuring layoffs were mostly among workers in food and beverage stores, transportation equipment manufacturing, and credit intermediation and related activities.

These data are from the BLS Mass Layoff Statistics program. These data are preliminary. To learn more, see "Extended Mass Layoffs in the Third Quarter of 2006" (PDF) (TXT) , news release USDL 06-1974. An extended layoff event is defined as fifty or more initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits from an establishment during a 5-week period, with at least 50 workers separated for more than 30 days.

Happy 10th Birthday, TED!

The very first issue of The Editor's Desk (TED) was posted on September 28, 1998. TED was the first online-only publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 10 years, BLS has been committed to posting a new TED article each business day, for a total of over 2,400 articles so far.

Find out more about the story of TED