This is a fascinating look at the numbers. But it's more illustrative than you might think.
The number of job cuts announced by U.S. corporations in September were up 54 percent from the number reported in the prior month for a total of 100,315, according to a report Tuesday from an outplacement firm.
Wow. That looks scary. But if you look closely, you'll see the word "announced" is used.
This was only the third time this year that job-cut announcements increased according to the monthly Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. survey, although it was the second monthly increase in a row. September was the first time since January that monthly job cuts exceeded 100,000.
Again, this report is talking about job cut "announcements".
The report is an anecdotal, non-statistical tally of job-cut announcements that are reported in major media outlets. The report focuses only on job-cut announcements, not actual layoffs, and it doesn’t take into account new hires or internal transfers at companies that have announced layoffs.
So, what they're saying is that these are only stories they've picked up from the media, and new employees and those to who move to new jobs at these same companies aren't considered. OK.
Now again, I may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but my question is: Why do this story anyway? There is no real news here, just news about a portion of an equation. Of course if you look at these numbers alone, alarm bells should go off. But these numbers do not exist in a vacuum.
My point to business leaders is that if you rely too heavily on what survey-takers and analysts say, you'll probably never succeed in your endeavors.
Stories and "reports" like this do no good service to the business community.
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