Employers in Illinois took 676 mass layoff actions in 2011 that resulted in the separation of 72,086 workers, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. (See chart 1.) Each action involved at least 50 persons from a single employer. Regional Commissioner Charlene Peiffer noted that the number of initial claims for unemployment insurance has declined each of the last two years after reaching 193,495 in 2009, the highest level in the history of the series, which goes back to 1996 on an annual basis. In 2011, initial claims for unemployment insurance declined by 19,191, following a record drop of 102,218 in 2010.

Industry distribution

Of all the industry sectors in Illinois, manufacturing experienced the most mass layoff events in 2011 with 148. (See table 1.) This sector also had the largest number of initial claimants at 19,120, making up 26.5 percent of the state’s total. (See chart 1.) Still, the number of claimants in manufacturing in 2011 was the lowest in the history of the series. Construction had the second highest numbers for mass layoff events, 119, and associated claims, 10,263, during the year, followed by administrative and waste services with 116 events and 9,345 claims. Combined, these three industries accounted for over one-half of all initial claimants in the state in 2011.

Of those sectors recording a drop in mass layoffs-related initial claims from 2010 to 2011, manufacturing had the largest decrease at 11,170, with the transportation equipment industry accounting for most of the loss. Construction had the next largest decline, down 4,434. One other sector finished 2011 with at least 1,000 fewer initial claimants than in 2010, local government (-2,420). (See table A.) On a percentage basis, federal government experienced the largest over-the-year decrease in annual claims, down 54.7 percent, followed by local government, down 45.9 percent.

In contrast, three sectors saw a rise in the number of initial claims associated with mass layoff events in 2011, led by professional and technical services, up 528 or 62.6 percent. Other services except public administration had the second highest increase in claims, up 302 or 50.6 percent. And though the manufacturing sector recorded the largest drop in claimants from 2010, one of its industries, food, added 915 claimants over the year, an increase of 23.1 percent, and another, fabricated metals, added 296, an increase of 28.4 percent.

Among the states, California recorded the highest number of mass layoff initial claims, 377,413, in 2011. Pennsylvania ranked second with 124,838, followed by New York (119,398) and Florida (79,766). Twenty-nine states experienced over-the-year decreases in total initial claims for the year, led by California (-42,396), Illinois (-19,191), and Florida (-9,010). One state, South Dakota, experienced no change in its initial claims count, while twenty states and the District of Columbia had increases in annual claims from 2010 to 2011, led by North Carolina (22,393) and Pennsylvania (12,270). In three of these states, Arkansas, Nebraska, and North Carolina, initial claims reached a series high in 2011.

Technical Note

The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program is a federal-state program that uses a standardized automated approach to identifying, describing, and tracking the effects of major job cutbacks, using data from each state's unemployment insurance database. Each month, states report on employers which have at least 50 initial claims filed against them during a consecutive 5-week period. These employers then are contacted by the state agency to determine whether these separations lasted 31 days or longer, and, if so, other information concerning the layoff is collected. States report on layoffs lasting more than 1 month on a quarterly basis.

A given month contains an aggregation of the weekly unemployment insurance claims filings for the Sunday through Saturday weeks in that month. All weeks are included for the particular month, except if the first day of the month falls on Saturday. In this case, the week is included in the prior month's tabulations. This means that some months will contain 4 weeks and others, 5 weeks. The number of weeks in a given month may be different from year to year, and the number of weeks in a year may vary. Therefore, analysis of over-the-month and over-the-year change in not seasonally adjusted series should take this calendar effect into consideration.

The MLS program resumed operations in April 1995 after it had been terminated in November 1992 due to lack of funding. Prior to April 1995, monthly layoff statistics were not available.

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Definitions

Employer. Employers in the MLS program include those covered by state unemployment insurance laws. Information on employers is obtained from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program, which is administered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Industry. Employers are classified according to the 2007 version of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). For temporary help and professional employer organization industries, monthly MLS-related statistics generally reflect layoffs related to underlying client companies in other industries. An individual layoff action at a client company can be small, but when initial claimants associated with many such layoffs are assigned to a temporary help or professional employer organization firm, a mass layoff event may trigger.

Initial claimant. A person who files any notice of unemployment to initiate a request either for a determination of entitlement to and eligibility for compensation, or for a subsequent period of unemployment within a benefit year or period of eligibility.

Mass layoff event. Fifty or more initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits filed against an employer during a 5-week period, regardless of duration.