USA Employment News: October 2010 Summary

October 2010 was marked by all kinds of economy and employment announcements. As a nation we are still trying to get over September's news that the recession ended in June 2009. Try to tell that to the many people who had to shut doors on their businesses, both big and small. Layoffs were still abundant and this time it included government employees. Not all of the employment news was dismal, there were some bright spots.

Business closures were abundant in October. Lots of small family run businesses could no longer weather the extended downturn in the economy. Some of the more noteworthy closures were:
The Liberace Museum, which closed its doors on October 17th. The Museum was opened by "Walter" Valentino Liberace, 31 years ago. Dwindling numbers of visitors to the museum was sighted as the reason for the closure.
Ford to close 147 Lincoln dealerships. While Ford did not face the same downturn in sales that the other automakers had, it does not mean that Ford did not have to tighten its belt a few notches. While 147 dealerships will close there will still be over 1000 still open for business as usual.
GE will to shut down their switchgear plant in Iowa. The manufacturing plant shut down will affect 243 employees. Since the plant had some of the highest paid employees in the region the shut down will affect the entire area.
Oregon will close one of its state's prisons. The closure will leave 63 state employees unemployed and marks the first time in Oregon history that a prison will be shut down. The cause is a budget shortfall.

Layoffs were across the board with city, state and county layoffs nation wide. The taxes generated by property taxes were sighted as the main cause of the lack of funds. That in of itself does not make sense since the banks that now owned many of the foreclosed properties would (or should) be still paying those property taxes. None the less, schools seem to be the first inline for cutbacks. Our own local school system in Linn County, Oregon has cut 10 school days from the school year to help make up for budget cuts.

Gloomy as the employment news has been, there are some bright areas. Intel has announced it will expand its plant in Oregon in the next 2 years. United Parcel Service (UPS) will be hiring 50000 people for the holiday delivery rush. The southern states seem to be having the serge of hiring compared to the rest of the country with the following companies hiring over 200 people:
Awesome Products in Arkansas
Mount Pleasant Hospital in South Carolina
Macy's distribution center in Tennessee
Cree Inc. in North Carolina
Humana in Florida
Caterpillar in Arkansas

While October has been a mixed bag of employment news, let's hope that November will fair better for those who are now unemployed or under employed.

Source
Daily Job Cuts