The number of Ohioans who lost their jobs through mass corporate cutbacks during the third quarter grew more than 20 percent from a year earlier as the pace of large firings jumped by more than half, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday.
Preliminary data from the bureau show 75 Ohio employers cut 50 workers or more – the agency’s definition of a mass reduction – from July through September, up from 49 cutbacks in the same period of 2008. The mass reductions resulted in 12,533 employee separations, up 23 percent from 10,187 a year earlier.
Ohio posted the sixth-highest total of worker separations for the quarter, the bureau said.
Around the nation, the number of mass cutbacks grew 12 percent to 1,776 during the three months from 1,581 a year earlier, the highest third-quarter level since bureau began tracking the reductions in 1995. The number of Americans who lost jobs in mass reductions fell 4 percent in the quarter from a year earlier to 277,924, but the average size of individual cutbacks shrunk by 28 workers to 156.
Factors related to business demand accounted for 48 percent of all cuts, the bureau reported, but employers’ expectations for recalls brightened from last year. Of the businesses that made mass reductions in the quarter, one-third told the government they expect to recall some workers, up from 29 percent last year, the bureau said.