August 1997 — 1997-11-12

In August 1997, there were 848 mass layoff actions by employers as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Preliminary figures may not include all states.) Each action involved at least 50 persons from a single establishment, and the number of workers involved totaled 86,688 persons. Although the number of initial claimants was somewhat higher than in August 1996, there were fewer reported layoff events. (See table 1.) August is typically a month of comparatively low unemployment insurance claimant activity, and August layoff events affected less than half the number of workers than did July events. The monthly series in this release covers mass layoffs of 50 or more workers beginning in a given month, regardless of the duration of the layoffs.