The U.S. job market saw significant ups and downs over the past year and it appears that trend is continuing. While a new Labor Department report shows the number of unemployment claims fell for the last week of 2011, a separate report shows the number of employers announcing job cuts for the year rose substantially.
Unemployment Claims Fell to 372,000
The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment claims dropped to 372,000 the week ending Dec 31. This represented a 15,000 claims drop from the revised reading for the week prior.
While the number of unemployment claims for the week weren’t quite as low as the 364,000 filed the week ending Dec. 17, which marked the fewest people seeking help through unemployment claims since April 2008, some think that the numbers show signs of sector improvement.
Couple this claims total count with the significant drop in the unemployment rate to 8.6 percent earlier in December and it looks as though the labor market may just be on the road to recovery–or is it?
December Job Cuts Rose 31 Percent
In a separate report released by Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. on Thursday, it was revealed that the number of job cuts announced by U.S. employers increased in December from the prior year’s decade low.
Planned firings jumped 31 percent to 41,785 last month from 32,004 in Dec. 2010 when the fewest were announced since June 2000. The firm also revealed the number of job cuts totaled 606,082 for 2011, which represented a 14 percent increase from the previous year.
The increase in announced job cuts shows the ups and downs the job sector has been suffering. On one end, the number of people filing for unemployment claims dropped, but on the other, companies are still letting their workers go, a sign that some of the workers may not be filing for unemployment benefits if they have other sources of support.
As noted by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, employers that aren’t letting workers go seem reluctant to add jobs, making it even more difficult for the job market to recover. It’s for this reason the company believes job creation will probably remain “slow and steady in 2012.”
