For the third time this year, one company’s announcement has made up the bulk of job cuts for one month, as U.S.-based employers announced plans to cut 75,644 jobs from their payrolls in October, according to a report released Thursday from global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
Last month’s total is 36.8 percent higher than the 55,285 cuts announced in September and 153.6 percent higher than the 29,831 cuts announced in the same month last year. October job cuts are the highest since July 2015, when 105,696 cuts were announced.
Over half (58.2 percent) of October job cuts come from Verizon’s announcement that it will offer voluntary severance packages to 44,000 managers in an effort to save $10 billion. This comes after Wells Fargo’s announcement of 26,000 cuts, or 10 percent of its workforce, in September. The Wells Fargo announcement made up 47.9 percent of all cuts in September. Meanwhile, the Toys“R”Us announcement, which comprised 33,000 job cuts, was 54.7 percent of the 60,357 job cut announcements in March.
