US job cut announcements continue falling in April, Challenger says

The pace of lay-off announcements at large US corporates declined to its lowest level since 2014 on the back of improving conditions in the energy space.

Year-to-date layoffs were running at 162,803 in April, which was 35% below the 2016 pace and the least for the first four months of the year since 2014, according to Challenger, Gray&Christmas.

In the first four months of 2017, job cut announcements were down by 87% to 8,725, from 67,660 one year ago.

"Although restructuring in the retail sector continues to shed jobs, we aren’t seeing the wide scale layoffs in other sectors, like energy or tech," said Challenger chief John A. Challenger.

Total workforce reduction announcements fell in April by 15% from the month before to reach 36,602.

April's tally was 43% less than the year-ago level of 64,141.

Retail was the worst performing sector in April, announcing 11,669 job cuts, while in energy only 459 were announced.

The message from telecommunications was similarly downbeat with 10,269 announcements in April, up by 70% from the year earlier figure.

"The FCC is expected to lift a ban on merger talks in the telecom industry which will likely result in companies paring down to make themselves more attractive in these deals. We could see even more cuts in the coming months from this sector," said Challenger.

"The economy seems to be in a holding pattern. The government jobs report saw lower-than expected job creation in March with 98,000 jobs added, and consumer spending has been sluggish in the first quarter. Companies may be waiting for the outcome of President Trump’s tax reform before making any major decisions."