January 2001 — 2001-03-02

In January 2001, there were 1,522 mass layoff actions by employers as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Each action involved at least 50 persons from a single establishment and the number of workers involved totaled 200,343. (See table 1.) The number of layoff events was the lowest for January since the series began in April 1995, while the number of initial claims for unemployment insurance was the lowest since January 1996. These lower levels were due, in part, to a calendar effect, since January in both 1996 and 2001 contained 4 weeks that ended in the month compared with 5 weeks in each of the other four Januarys. The monthly data series in this release cover mass layoffs of 50 or more workers beginning in a given month, regardless of the duration of the layoffs.