Analytical Wealth

Here is a link to an interactive graphic from the WSJ that lists layoffs by industry, and allows you to see how many people where laid off by individual companies within each sector. Here is a link to another chart from the WSJ that tracks all of the major layoff announcements so far this year.

Bear in mind that the number of jobs lost a particular company often exceeds the amount indicated in a layoff announcement, as they're not required to disclose temporary/contingent/contract positions lost, cut backs at vendors, etc. For instance I've observed numerous situations where a full time employee has a temp for an admin, and has engaged 2-3 other contract employees and/or consultants, which results in a loss of 4-5 jobs when the full time employee is laid off. In other cases layoffs may prompt cut backs on vendors that provide various support services at various companies, you may not need as many people working in the cafeteria if the number of people eating in it decreases by 30%.

Something else to consider is that (depending on who you ask) anywhere from 2-9 jobs depends on each full time job at various top companies. For instance in the fall the NY Fed estimated that 2.5 full time jobs in the NYC area were dependent on each full time job on Wall St., meaning that a Wall St. layoff announcement of 10,000 jobs represents a total loss of 35,000 jobs for the NYC area.  I also recall hearing estimates on NPR that as many as 7-9 full time jobs depends on each full time job within the auto industry.

Mind you there is a lag factor at play here as the impact on support vendors, other companies within the area, etc, may not generate additional job losses for several weeks (or months) after the layoff announcement. However it goes without saying that the 598,000 jobs lost in January is going to cause hundreds of thousands of job losses this coming spring, and this will be on top of the job losses that aren't necessarily a direct result of earlier layoffs.

Disclosure: at the time of publishing the author didn't own a position in any of the companies mentioned in this article; the ideas expressed are solely the opinions of the author and shouldn't be viewed as financial or investment advice.