Job Cuts Surge More Than 30% in 2019, but It’s Not All Bad News

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 6, 5:02AM EST · Published May 2, 8:50AM EDT

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Job Cuts Surge More Than 30% in 2019, but It’s Not All Bad News — © Tim Boyle / Getty Images

American-based companies have announced job cuts of 230,433 through the first four months of 2019, up 31% year over year. However, the cuts slowed in April and dropped 34% compared to March. April cuts totaled 40,023. One of the leading experts in job tracking believes the figures will get better over the next several months.

Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas has tracked monthly job cuts for years. Its take on the job market is sanguine in general. Andrew Challenger, one of the company’s vice presidents, said: “The second quarter averages the fewest cuts of the year, according to our historical tracking. With the favorable jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in March, this could signify companies are slowing down plans to cut workers for the spring and summer months.”

Despite the firm’s optimism, job cuts were particularly large in several industries. Challenger described cuts in manufacturing as “troubling.” This is not just because of the size of the cuts. Related industries are often affected by downsizing at their customers and partners.

Retail was hit hardest among all industries, with 48,076 cuts so far this year, though this was down from 64,370 last year. The trend shows how badly retail has been hit over a period that stretches back several years. The demise of companies like Toys “R” Us and Sears recently are only the tip of that iceberg. Challenger said that there were “announced plans to shutter 4,397 stores so far this year.” A number of these cuts were at retailers closing the most stores.
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The second largest industry based on total cuts was Industrial Goods at 39,304, which was up from 4,625 in the same period of last year. Automotive industry cuts reached 19,802 through April, up from 6,451 in the same period in 2018.

Challenger also looked at reasons for the job cuts. Companies said “restructuring” accounted for 55,706 jobs this year. Few, if any, of these were among industries that have the best jobs in America.

Total announced job cuts in 2018 were 538,659, according to Challenger. If the 2019 pace does not slow, the number will be worse this year.

Industry	2019	2018
Retail	48,076	64,370
Industrial Goods	39,304	4,625
Automotive	19,802	6,451
Health Care/Products	14,374	17,450
Energy	12,179	2,879

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.