Job cuts slide in June

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CHICAGO, July 5 (UPI) -- Job cut announcements made by U.S. employers in June fell to the lowest number in more than a year, a private research firm said Thursday.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas said employers announced 37,551 job cuts in the month of June. While that was only slightly lower than the March figure of 37,880, it was the lowest number of layoffs announced in a month since May 2011.

Schools announced the most job cuts in the month, saying they would cut 6,569 jobs, nearly double the 3,536 job cut announcements in education made in May.

"Overall, 15 industries have seen job cuts increase from a year ago, but we still are not seeing the level of downsizing that might foretell a double-dip recession," said Chief Executive Officer John Challenger.

In some sectors, job cuts announced by one large firm can alter the year's figures. In the computer industry, the bulk of job cuts announcements came from one firm, HP. Under consumer products, two firms have made up 64 percent of the layoff announcements for the year, which are up 144 percent January to June compared to the same period of 2011.

In June, the job cuts were 9.4 percent lower than June 2011, when there were 41,432 layoff announcements in the month.

From January through June, there were 283,091 job cuts were announced, 15 percent more than the 245,806 announced in the first six months of 2011.

This year's announced layoffs are lower than recent years, however. From 2001 through 2005, an average of 636,040 job cuts were announced in the first six months of the year, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said.