via MarketWatch:
The recent spate of bankruptcies in corporate America is taking its toll.
In the first seven months of the year, U.S.-based companies announced 42,937 job cuts due to bankruptcy, up 40% on the same period last year and nearly 20% higher than all bankruptcy-related job losses last year, a report released Tuesday concluded. Despite record-low unemployment, bankruptcy filings have not claimed this many jobs since the Great Recession.
‘It is the highest seven-month total since 2009 when 50,258 cuts due to bankruptcy were announced.’
“It is the highest seven-month total since 2009 when 50,258 cuts due to bankruptcy were announced,” according to the report by outplacement and business coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “In fact, it is higher than the annual totals for bankruptcy cuts every year since 2009, when 50,911 were announced for the entire year.”
Companies cited bankruptcy as the reason for 11.6% of all job cuts announced from January to July. That’s compared to 11.3% of all cuts for the same period in 2018. Since 2007, bankruptcy has accounted for approximately 6% of all job cuts every year. The Challenger report tracks planned job cuts publicly announced by U.S.-based employers.
These job losses are gleaned from news reports, company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, annual reports, company press releases and, where possible, state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) reports. Regardless of when the job losses actually occur, they are counted in the month they are announced.