November 2001 — 2001-12-28

In November 2001, there were 2,699 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 293,074. (See table 1.) The number of layoff events and initial claimants for unemploy- ment insurance were the highest for the month of November since the series began in April 1995. (November 2001 contained 5 weeks for possible mass layoffs, compared with 4 weeks in each of the prior three Novembers.) Over the January-November 2001 period, the total number of events, at 18,920, and initial claims, at 2,228,945, were substantially higher than in January- November 2000, at 13,061 and 1,508,849, respectively.