Firm: Feb. layoffs were below Jan. job cuts

Employers disclosed plans to lay off 186,350 people during the month of February, said Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a Chicago-based outplacement consulting firm that tracks such data.

The February total was 158 percent higher than the 72,091 job cuts announced in the same month a year ago, but it represented a 23 percent decline from a seven-year high of 241,749 job cuts in January 2009, and that decrease may be a sign that the pace of lay-off announcements may be moderating somewhat, the firm said.

“The decline in job cuts last month offers some hope that January was the peak, and we will now see layoffs begin to fall or at least stabilize," firm chief executive John A. Challenger said in a statement. "It is doubtful that monthly job cuts will fall below 100,000 during the first half of year and possibly for the remainder of 2009, but hopefully we have seen the last instance of monthly job cuts in excess of 200,000.”
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)