Mass Layoffs To Return With A Vengeance

How safe is your job?

Remember the mass layoffs of 2008-2009? The US economy shed millions of jobs quickly and relentlessly, as companies died and the rest fought for survival.

Then the Fed and the US government flooded the banks and the corporate sector with bailouts and handouts. With those giga-tons of liquidity sloshing around, as well as taking on massive amounts of new cheap debt, companies were able to finance their working capital needs, hire workers back, and even buy-back their sharesen mass to make themselves look deceptively profitable. The nightmare of 2008 soon became a golden era of ‘recovery’.

Well, 2016 is showing us that that era is over. And as stock prices cease to rise, and in fact fall within many industries, layoffs are beginning to make a return as companies jettison costs in attempt to reduce losses.

Since January 1st, here is a but of subset of the headlines we’ve seen:

• Johnson & Johnson to slash 3,000 jobs
• Wal-Mart pulls plug on smallest store format, shuts 269 stores
• GE plans to cut 6,500 jobs in Europe
• BP to slash thousands more jobs in face of oil downturn
• Macy’s to cut 3,000 jobs, close 36 stores
• Sprint cutting 2,500 and closing call centers to cut costs
• Canadian Pacific Railway plans to cut 1,000 positions
• Brazil economy shed 1.5 million payroll jobs in 2015
• Pearson to cut 4,000 jobs in latest restructuring
• Barclays to slash about 1,000 investment bank jobs worldwide
• Southwestern Energy to lay off 1,100 workers amid oil slump
• Major banks are making cuts: Bank of America, Citi Group and JPMorgan Chase are trimming jobs and branches.
• Autodesk to cut 10 pct of workforce
• Caterpillar closing 5 plants, cutting 670 jobs
• VMware posts higher-than-expected revenue, announces job cuts
• AIG to cut jobs in sweeping overhaul
• Monsanto to slash 1,000 more jobs, total planned cuts at 3,600
• Instacart layoffs may be a sign of things to come
• EMC plans layoffs as it cuts annual costs by $850M