Once-promising online and technology companies along with car manufacturers headed the list as US firms announced the biggest number of job cuts in a single month since 1993. The total of jobs lost because of the economic slowdown in the last two months now amounts to more than half a million.
The struggling Internet toy seller eToys laid off 700 workers in January and has told the remaining 300 members of its staff they will be out of a job in April.
American companies announced 142,208 layoffs in January, surpassing December's record number of 133,713 and bringing the total job cut announcements in the past two months to 275,921, according to international outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
In vehicle manufacturing there were 34,959 job cut announcements during January. Telecommunication companies announced 22,060 planned layoffs, and retailers 15,344. Internet and e-commerce companies announced 11,887 layoffs, and computer companies said they were cutting 10,904 jobs.
The major layoffs in January were: DaimlerChrysler, 26,000; Lucent Technologies, 16,000 (includes 6,000 workers who may be rehired by outside contractors); Sara Lee, 7,000; J.C. Penney, 5,300; Xerox, 4,000; Nortel Networks, 4,000; Textron, 3,600; Gateway, 3,000; Motorola, 2,500; AOL Time Warner, 2,400; Standard Register, 2,400, Hewlett-Packard, 1,700 and Amazon.com, 1,300.
