Recent Layoff Rate Was Highest Since Early 1980's

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/02/business/02jobs.html

Layoffs occurred at the second-fastest rate on record during the first three years of the Bush administration, a government report has found.

In the government's latest survey of how frequently workers are permanently dismissed from their jobs, the layoff rate reached 8.7 percent of all adult jobholders, or 11.4 million men and women age 20 or older. That is nearly equal to the 9 percent rate for the 1981-1983 period, which included the steepest contraction in the American economy since the Great Depression.

Recession and weak economic growth characterized most of the period from 2001 to 2003, and millions of jobs disappeared. But while layoffs normally rise in hard times and fall in prosperous years, the new survey published Friday by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics added to the statistical evidence that layoffs are more frequent now, in both good times and bad, than they were in similar cycles a decade ago.

The anecdotal evidence is abundant on this point, but the statistical evidence is only beginning to tell the same story. "It appears there is more displacement now; this latest number is quite high," said Henry S. Farber, a Princeton University labor economist who has challenged the anecdotal evidence, wondering whether it overstated the case.

...more...

[liberalmuse]

1. No kidding?

This has been the first time I've ever been laid off. The good news is, I start my new job tomorrow. The bad news is, it pays less than my old job.

[mhr]

2. So In Bush's America We Are All Trending Toward Contract Labor

Here today, gone tomorrow.

Pray tell, Fundies and Repugs, what kind of Society will that lead to?

[schultzee]

4. Right. Corporate feudalism and jobs insecurity do make the pigs

richer and richer and the poor more poor and also makes more and more poor. Oink Oink says Bush/Cheney, "we are getting it for our friends."

[Tight_rope]

3. This should come as a surpise to anyone! Outsourcing is making jobs!

[WindRavenX]

5. I graduate from college in 3 years...

...and I desperately hope the economy picks up. Finding a job in this economy is impossible. Under W, I doubt it will improve..

[struggle4progress]

6. kick for a booming economy

:kick:

[moondust]

7. Hmm. Both during first term Republicans.

Starting to look like a pattern.