Job Numbers Are Up, but See Which Companies Are Still Cutting

Major U.S. employers issued the fewest layoff announcements so far this year in May, tracking with the strong employment numbers the government announced June 5.

USA TODAY tracked just 250 mass layoff notices in May, affecting 32,000 workers. That included Spirit Airlines’ 11 layoff filings reported in several states affecting nearly 7,000 workers in May. The airline announced a shutdown and ceased all flight operations in early May.

Jobs Report Signals Strength

U.S. employers added 172,000 jobs in May, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.3%, according to the latest numbers released from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The agency also revised the job data from previous months. Both March and April had more job figures compared to the initial numbers.

Layoff records tracked through Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) filings collected by USA TODAY show a downward trend since January, when over 400 notices totaled over 40,000 job cuts. The filings represent layoff announcements by businesses with at least 100 employees.

Such companies have made nearly 2,000 layoff announcements affecting more than 166,000 workers in the first five months this year, according to USA TODAY’s tracking database. That’s about 13% fewer reported job cuts compared with the same period last year.

“Right now, the labor market is precariously stable,” said Cory Stahle, senior economist at Indeed. “It’s stable in terms of we’ve reached kind of a balancing point, but it’s not clear as to whether or not that balancing point is actually a tipping point.”

The current “pretty good” job market sits alongside underlying risk and uncertainty, including the ongoing Iran conflict and higher energy and gas prices, Stahle said.

And disparities exist in today’s labor market: Workers who are already employed and are in growing sectors are finding jobs relatively easily, he said, while those who are unemployed or outside those booming industries are struggling to find work.

The number of long-term unemployed Americans is on the rise even as the market shows stronger-than-expected job growth, the latest federal data reveals.

Understanding WARN Notices

The WARN Act, passed in 1988, requires employers with 100 or more full-time workers to provide at least 60 days’ notice before mass layoffs or plant closures. The act is intended to give workers time to prepare for job losses and begin searching for new employment.

USA TODAY collects WARN filings from 43 state labor departments and the District of Columbia to track layoffs from major companies across the country. The database includes notices dating back to the 1990s and allows readers to search by state, company and year.

Seven states — including Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming — do not offer public data access or have incompatible data formats.

Since WARN reporting systems vary by state, the filings may appear weeks after layoffs are announced, and companies may also amend or withdraw notices. So the totals in the tracker could change as new records are updated.

Still, experts see WARN notices as a leading indicator of large-scale job cuts, offering an early estimate of the timing and size of workforce reductions that may not take effect for up to two months after announcements.

“It’s more important than ever to be keeping an eye on what’s going on with these WARN notices,” Stahle said, as a significant pickup in layoff numbers could quickly offset the job gains.