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Pink Slips: January Job Cuts Drop 11 Percent From Year Ago

Aired February 04, 2004 - 06:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Time for a little more "Business Buzz" now. It wasn't the best start to the New Year for some Americans, pink slips jumped 26 percent in January.
Carrie Lee live from the Nasdaq market site has more for us.

Good morning -- Carrie.

CARRIE LEE, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

A lot of people thinking is this ever going to end. Planned job cuts in January actually were 26 percent higher than in December. Also coming in above 117,000 for the month, surpassing the 100,000 threshold for the first time since October. This according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the outplacement firm.

Two main reasons for this, a lot of jobs are going overseas to places like India, China where labor is cheaper. Also corporate mergers have made a lot of positions redundant.

Now the good news here or the relative good news is that last month's planned job cuts are 11 percent lower than what we saw in January of 2003. But since the economy has been growing for nine consecutive quarters, this is a real sticking point for the Bush administration. Since President Bush took office, over 2.3 million non-farm jobs have been lost. And this is certainly, Carol, going to be a big part of the discussion during the election campaign. We've been in this economic recovery mode, but we haven't been substantially adding jobs.

COSTELLO: I think it's already part of this topic of discussion during the election process.

Carrie Lee live from the Nasdaq market site.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Ago>


Aired February 4, 2004 - 06:16   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Time for a little more "Business Buzz" now. It wasn't the best start to the New Year for some Americans, pink slips jumped 26 percent in January.
Carrie Lee live from the Nasdaq market site has more for us.

Good morning -- Carrie.

CARRIE LEE, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

A lot of people thinking is this ever going to end. Planned job cuts in January actually were 26 percent higher than in December. Also coming in above 117,000 for the month, surpassing the 100,000 threshold for the first time since October. This according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the outplacement firm.

Two main reasons for this, a lot of jobs are going overseas to places like India, China where labor is cheaper. Also corporate mergers have made a lot of positions redundant.

Now the good news here or the relative good news is that last month's planned job cuts are 11 percent lower than what we saw in January of 2003. But since the economy has been growing for nine consecutive quarters, this is a real sticking point for the Bush administration. Since President Bush took office, over 2.3 million non-farm jobs have been lost. And this is certainly, Carol, going to be a big part of the discussion during the election campaign. We've been in this economic recovery mode, but we haven't been substantially adding jobs.

COSTELLO: I think it's already part of this topic of discussion during the election process.

Carrie Lee live from the Nasdaq market site.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Ago>