By Jennifer Keiper, WLS-AM 890 News
(CHICAGO) Employers are expected to add roughly 170,000 jobs in the government’s December jobs report, which comes out later this morning.
While December 2016 layoffs were up some 42% from December 2015 a report from Chicago-based Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas found the total for December of 2016 was far below the annual average of almost 44,000 cuts.
Some of those cuts were in the retail sector, during the holiday season. John Challenger tells WLS-AM 890, “It’s a surprise and it suggests that the pressures on some of these retailers was very heavy.”
This week we’ve learned of more cuts -big ones- at Macy’s, Sears, and Kmart stores.
“Most companies don’t really like to make their cut announcements, certainly in the last two weeks of December. So, sometimes when you get back this first week you see some big announcements. Retailers have just finished the holiday season and now they know where they stand,” said Challenger.
Looking back at 2016, Challenger says the energy sector saw the highest number of layoffs due to historically low oil prices, followed by the computer industry, and retail.
@ 2017 WLS-AM News
