October 1998 — 1999-01-06

In October 1998, there were 1,554 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 160,888. The number of layoff events and initial claimants for unemployment insurance were higher this October than in October 1997. The total of layoff events from January through October 1998, at 12,762, was about the same as in the prior year (12,170), while the total number of initial claimants, at 1,419,165, was higher (1,270,463). (See table 1.) 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.