The latest data from Challenger show that layoffs fell in November, after a spike in October. These data are not seasonally adjusted, and also show large month to month "spikes". So I have fitted a centred 5-month moving average to the data. This moving average (see chart below) points to a big jump in layoffs after Trump's election, an improvement up to July and deterioration since then. I have estimated a provisional seasonally-adjusted version of the Challenger layoff data, and it produces the same pattern. [Why not a final seasonally adjusted series? Because I want to run some statistical tests, to confirm seasonality, and it's late at night, so that will have to wait for tomorrow. Meanwhile .....]
If you look at the average of the unadjusted data over the last 12 months, the last time layoffs were this high was during the Covid Crash, and the time before that was during the GFC in 2009!
Don't be misled by one month's improvement. The trend is still bad: layoffs are rising, despite the apparent drop in November.
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| Note inverted scale for job cuts |
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