Employers in New Jersey took 585 mass layoff actions in 2011 that resulted in the separation of 66,811 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. Acting Regional Commissioner Joyce A. Sweeney pointed out that the number of claims rose by 5,413 over the year to reach the second highest total in the history of the series, which goes back to 1996 on an annual basis.

Industry distribution

Of all the industry sectors in New Jersey, transportation and warehousing experienced the most mass layoff events with 128, resulting in 12,432 claims for unemployment insurance. (See table 1. and chart 1.) Accommodation and food services had the next highest number of layoff events, 84, but the industry had the largest count of initial claimants, 15,435, which accounted for 23.1 percent of the state's total. Retail trade and manufacturing rounded out the top four sectors, with 73 and 70 events, respectively; each registered more than 6,000 claims. Information and administrative and waste services were the only other sectors to have more than 5,000 initial claims.

Information experienced the largest increase in mass layoff-related initial claims (4,647), reaching a program high in 2011. Transportation and warehousing posted the next highest increase (1,370), while four other sectors finished the year with at least 750 more initial claimants above the 2010 level. All six of these industries had posted declines from 2009 to 2010, but only information added enough claims to offset its 2009-10 reduction. (See table A.) In retail trade, the number of claimants rose to the second-highest total in the history of the series.

Table A. Sectors with at least 750 more mass layoff initial claims in 2011, New Jersey

Sector	Net change
	2009-10	2010-11
Information	-1,151	4,647
Transportation and warehousing	-1,413	1,370
Administrative and waste services	-1,518	919
Manufacturing	-3,987	816
Retail trade	-1,386	815
Construction	-863	759

In contrast, four sectors saw a decrease in the number of initial claims associated with mass layoff events, led by local government, down 3,781 or 47.2 percent, and accommodation and food services, down 341 or 2.2 percent. Despite declines, numbers of claimants in both of these industries in 2011 was the second highest for the 16 years data are available.

Among the states, California recorded the greatest number of initial claims, 377,413, in 2011. Pennsylvania (124,838) ranked second, followed by New York (119,398) and Florida (79,766). Twenty-nine states experienced over-the-year declines in total initial claims for the year. Seven states recorded a decline of at least 5,000, with the largest reduction in claims occurring in California (-42,396) and Illinois (-19,191). Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia had more initial claims related to mass layoffs in 2011 than in 2010, with New Jersey among the seven states where the claimant count grew by more than 5,000. In two of these states, Arkansas and North Carolina, the number of claimants reached a series high; and in two others, Mississippi and New Jersey, the number of claimants increased to the second-highest level on record.

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.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339.

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.

Table 1. Mass layoff events and initial claimants for unemployment insurance, New Jersey, selected industries, annual totals

Industry	Mass layoff events				Initial claims for unemployment insurance
	2009	2010	2011	2012	2009	2010	2011	2012
Total, all industries (1)	518	690	569	585	51,623	68,149	61,398	66,811
Total, private	480	637	484	536	48,186	63,108	52,371	61,536
Total, private nonfarm	479	636	483	535	48,091	63,044	52,309	61,461
Construction	33	40	27	32	2,490	2,856	1,993	2,752
Heavy and civil engineering construction	17	19	14	23	1,315	1,387	921	2,116
Specialty trade contractors	13	19	11	8	947	1,349	961	559
Manufacturing	73	115	59	70	6,171	9,260	5,273	6,089
Food	9	11	10	16	796	913	1,279	1,445
Paper	(2) -	6	(2) -	5	(2) -	466	(2) -	342
Chemicals	12	20	19	9	892	1,852	1,637	820
Plastics and rubber products	8	5	(2) -	6	797	288	(2) -	352
Nonmetallic mineral products	8	14	5	11	746	1,100	518	1,140
Fabricated metal products	(2) -	10	(2) -	5	(2) -	889	(2) -	505
Computer and electronic products	6	13	(2) -	4	447	951	(2) -	460
Wholesale trade	13	19	14	13	1,087	1,695	1,452	1,795
Merchant wholesalers, durable goods	(2) -	10	6	(2) -	(2) -	860	671	(2) -
Merchant wholesalers, nondurable goods	10	9	8	8	790	835	781	1,467
Retail trade	52	82	67	73	4,573	7,426	6,040	6,855
Building material and garden supply stores	7	9	(2) -	8	621	936	(2) -	815
Food and beverage stores	10	20	19	21	685	1,643	1,672	1,777
Health and personal care stores	(2) -	4	6	(2) -	(2) -	264	425	(2) -
Clothing and clothing accessories stores	(2) -	6	5	(2) -	(2) -	430	320	(2) -
General merchandise stores	26	29	25	27	2,435	2,751	2,626	2,937
Transportation and warehousing	107	119	105	128	11,902	12,475	11,062	12,432
Transit and ground passenger transportation	91	100	87	115	9,632	10,538	9,617	11,220
Warehousing and storage	4	6	9	8	392	504	765	638
Information	12	17	12	10	1,050	2,399	1,248	5,895
Publishing industries, except Internet	(2) -	7	5	(2) -	(2) -	669	559	(2) -
Telecommunications	6	9	7	6	575	1,680	689	5,576
Finance and insurance	24	23	15	14	1,781	1,760	1,150	993
Credit intermediation and related activities	16	13	10	9	1,144	1,005	729	603
Securities, commodity contracts, investments	7	7	4	(2) -	557	419	309	(2) -
Professional and technical services	11	21	13	8	909	1,750	1,136	1,016
Management of companies and enterprises	(2) -	(2) -	(2) -	5	(2) -	(2) -	(2) -	320
Administrative and waste services	55	80	60	68	4,362	5,997	4,479	5,398
Administrative and support services	55	77	58	67	4,362	5,837	4,350	5,301
Educational services	4	4	5	(2) -	238	233	348	(2) -
Health care and social assistance	14	15	14	16	1,500	1,933	1,186	1,388
Hospitals	(2) -	5	3	(2) -	(2) -	1,015	248	(2) -
Social assistance	9	10	10	13	721	918	886	1,146
Arts, entertainment, and recreation	5	6	(2) -	7	294	445	(2) -	607
Amusements, gambling, and recreation	4	5	(2) -	4	239	380	(2) -	286
Accommodation and food services	70	89	79	84	11,150	14,191	15,776	15,435
Accommodations	18	31	23	36	2,040	2,688	2,046	3,455
Food services and drinking places	52	58	56	48	9,110	11,503	13,730	11,980
Government	38	53	85	49	3,437	5,041	9,027	5,275
Federal	-	-	2	-	-	-	149	-
State	7	7	6	8	1,298	1,018	861	1,039
Local	31	46	77	41	2,139	4,023	8,017	4,236
Footnotes (1) Total includes all industries, including those not listed in the table. (2) Data do not meet BLS or state agency disclosure standards.
NOTE: Dash represents zero.