CHICAGO, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Planned U.S. job cuts increased last month for the second consecutive month, surging 54 percent to 100,315 in September from 65,278 in August.
Chicago's Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. also said Tuesday that September was the first time since January that monthly job cuts exceeded 100,000.
September job cuts were 40-percent higher than the 71,836 cuts announced in the same month a year ago. It was only the third time this year that job-cut announcements increased.
The third quarter, which began with the lowest job-cut total in six years, ended with 202,771 job cuts, 12 percent more than the 180,580 second-quarter job cuts. The third quarter was 17 percent lower than the same 3-month period in 2005, when 245,378 job cuts were announced.
This year employers have announced 639,229 job cuts, 18 percent fewer than the 2005 9-month total of 783,652.
The September surge was driven by the return of heavy job cutting in the automotive industry, which announced 33,745 cuts. That was the largest monthly total for the industry since January when 36,299 job cuts were announced.
