Mass Layoffs In May 2003 — 2003-06-26

Employers initiated 1,699 mass layoff actions in May 2003, as mea- sured 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 173,784. (See table 1.) Compared with a year ago, both the number of layoff events and the number of workers involved declined slightly. From January through May 2003, the total number of events, at 8,159, and initial claims, at 798,185, were lower than in January-May 2002--8,222 and 910,009, respec- tively. 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.