Extended Mass Layoffs In The Third Quarter Of 2004 — 2004-11-18

In the third quarter of 2004, 780 mass layoff actions were taken by employers that resulted in the separation of 131,452 workers from their jobs for at least 31 days, according to preliminary figures released by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both the total number of layoff events and the number of separations were sharply lower than in July-September 2003 and were the lowest for a third quarter since the program began in 1995. (See table A.) The declines over the year were most notable in administrative and support services, food manufacturing, and textile mills. Extended mass layoffs that involve the movement of work within the same company or to a different company, domestically or outside the U.S., occurred in about 13 percent of the nonseasonal layoff events and accounted for about 15 percent of the worker separations in nonseasonal events.