September 24, 2004 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Layoffs in August 2004

In August 2004, employers took 809 mass layoff actions, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance during the month. Each action involved at least 50 persons from a single establishment, and the number of workers involved totaled 69,033.

[Chart data—TXT]

Both the number of events and initial claims were lower than a year ago. It should be noted that August 2004 contained 4 weeks for possible mass layoffs, compared with 5 weeks in each August of the prior 3 years.

From January through August 2004, the total number of events, at 11,017, and of initial claims, at 1,118,574, were lower than in January-August 2003 (13,205 and 1,316,863, respectively).

The manufacturing sector had 24 percent of all mass layoff events and 26 percent of all initial claims filed in August—the smallest shares for any August since 1995, when the monthly series began. A year ago, manufacturing reported 32 percent of events and 39 percent of initial claims.

These data are from the Mass Layoff Statistics program. Mass layoffs data for July and August 2004 are preliminary and subject to revision. For more information, see news release USDL 04-1831, "Mass Layoffs in August 2004" (PDF) (TXT).