Pink-Slip Capitals
Posted by Main Blog on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
he slowing economy has made such large-scale layoffs common. According to a new report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 3,489 mass layoffs in the first quarter of the year, eliminating 559,000 jobs. These big payroll cuts accounted for more than a fourth of the 2.1 million jobs lost during the period. Some areas of America are feeling the pain of mass firings more than others.
To see who’s been hit hardest, we ranked metropolitan statistical areas by the number of jobs lost through layoffs involving more than 50 employees during the first quarter of 2009. Separation had to be for more than 31 days, so as to exclude temporary furloughs.
Where’s it worst? Detroit, where 57 mass layoffs snuffed out 14,781 jobs in the first quarter of 2009. Much of the pain came from the Big Three carmakers: General Motors, Chrysler and Ford Motor. The area has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 14%.
Chicago runs a close second with 13,647 jobs erased in mass firings. Construction-heavy Los Angeles, also hurt by the Golden State’s financial crisis, wiped out 10,594. Finance-focused New York lost 8,688 during the first quarter of 2009. Houston also made the list with 7,184 job losses; Dallas had 4,784.
Larger cities were bound to get singled out: They attract big corporations with big payrolls that require big cuts to make meaningful differences to their bottom lines. At the state level, California had the most mass layoffs with 115,014 workers let go, followed by Michigan with 46,817, Illinois with 41,887 and Texas with a more modest 33,005.
Mass layoffs put even more strain on a city’s economy than gradual job cuts. Local governments have to quickly find a way to help newly unemployed workers. “You really don’t want to get hit with mass layoffs because you now have a large number of people who need resources and it really tends to overwhelm the public sector,” said Joel Naroff, an economist at Naroff Advisers.
May 20th, 2009
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