Wednesday, May 6, 2009
April’s Job Loss Report Less of a Train Wreck Than March’s
The number of job cuts made during April was the lowest since October. That’s the latest from outplacement services provider Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which said today that “planned workforce reductions” in April were 132,590–12 percent fewer than the more than 150,000 recorded in March. Great news, right? Until you realize that the “planned reductions” to which the company refers were up 47 percent from a year earlier and are still at recession levels.
Another grim report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics today shows the job market slipping closer still to the grim levels it reached in 1982. The country lost 651,000 jobs in February, pushing the national unemployment rate to 8.1 percent, the Bureau said Friday. That’s its highest rate in 25 years.
Microsoft gave technical training to the 5,000 employees it plans to lay off over the next 18 months. Now it’s extending that benefit to the rest of the unemployed labor pool. On Sunday, the company announced Elevate America, a three-year job-training effort aimed at giving people the technology skills they need to survive in the job market. 
