U.S.-based employers announced plans to cut 58,577 jobs from their payrolls in May, up 46% from the 40,023 cuts announced in April, according to a report released Thursday from global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
May’s cuts are up 86% from the same month last year, when 31,517 cuts were announced. So far this year, employers have announced 289,010 job cuts, 39% higher than the 207,977 cuts announced in the same period last year.
“The Tech sector announced the highest number of job cuts last month. Large Tech firms are finding they need to move workers through the pipeline in order to become more agile. In fact, we’ve seen a number of Tech and Telecom companies offering buyouts to older workers over the last year,” said Andrew Challenger, Vice President of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
Companies in the Technology sector announced 12,635 job cuts in May, bringing the year-to-date total to 18,568, 342% higher than the 4,205 announced through this point last year. Telecom companies announced the second-highest number of cuts in May with 6,751, 60% of the 11,202 total cuts announced for the year.
Tech companies, however, are not the biggest job cutters in 2019. Retailers continue to lead all sectors with 50,243 cuts, 2,167 of which were announced in May. Retail cuts are down 28% over last
year, when 69,316 were announced.
