June 23, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Mass layoffs, May 2008

In May 2008, employers took 1,626 mass layoff actions, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month.

[Chart data—TXT]

Each action involved at least 50 persons from a single employer; the number of workers involved totaled 171,387, on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Layoff events and associated initial claimants were the highest for the month of May since 2003. The number of mass layoff events in May 2008 increased sharply by 318 from the prior month, while the number of associated initial claims rose by 37,473.

From January through May 2008, the total number of events, at 7,615, and initial claims, at 783,942, were considerably higher than in January-May 2007 (6,325 and 650,605, respectively).

These data are from the Mass Layoff Statistics program and are all seasonally adjusted. To learn more, see "Mass Layoffs in May 2008," (PDF) (HTML) news release USDL 08-0831.