Some good economic news: employers cut fewer jobs in October than expected:
In a positive sign for the US economy, governments and businesses did not cut jobs in October nearly has much as they had initially planned.
At the same time, companies have announced many more hiring plans than layoffs, as they gear up for the holiday season, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based outplacement company.
Economists view the news as an indication that the US economy may be getting over the shocks of the past summer, when Congress and President Obama engaged in a stare-down over the debt ceiling limit and the stock market fell sharply. The hiatus in layoffs is also related to the fact many state and local governments made their big cuts this summer and are no longer axing workers.
“What the numbers had showed is that companies got worried over the summer and took immediate action, and now that they are less worried, layoffs are back to where they had been,” says Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pa.
According to Challenger, planned job cuts fell 63 percent from September, which had been the highest in at least two years. Announced job cuts came to 42,759, the lowest number since June and a sharp drop from the 155,730 in September.
The Challenger report comes two days before the Labor Department announces the October unemployment numbers. Wall Street economists expect job gains of 130,000 to 140,000 in October. The unemployment rate is expected to remain close to 9 percent.
In September, the economy added only 103,000 new jobs, and the unemployment rate was 9.1 percent.
Separately, ADP, a payroll processing firm, said Wednesday its monthly survey found that private employers added about 110,000 jobs in October. The report suggests hiring remains only “moderate,” and is probably below the pace needed for a stable unemployment rate, the firm said.
Are we in a situation of three steps forward and one step back?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.