A recent string of high-profile layoffs have taken up headlines and caused anxiety in the workforce.
Companies announced 153,074 layoffs in October, adding up to 1.1 million cut announcements for the year, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That makes it the worst year for layoff notices since 2009, CNBC reported.
But job experts say they’re not in panic mode. Layoff news doesn’t paint the whole picture of the job market. Private data around job openings, payrolls and employee sentiment show that hiring is cooling but “not falling off a cliff,” says Glassdoor chief economist Daniel Zhao.
The Challenger monthly data can be volatile, for one, and layoff announcements haven’t yet shown up in state-level weekly filings for unemployment benefits, which are still being released during the shutdown.
“I’m not alarmed,” says Laura Ullrich, Indeed’s director of economic research. The latest available data “does not seem today to indicate that we’re going into a high layoff period for the overall economy.”
