Employers announced more layoffs in July than any month in nearly four years and the pace of planned job cuts this year is the most since the Great Recession, career counseling firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said Thursday.
More than half of the cuts announced last month were from the U.S. Army, which plans to eliminate 57,000 positions over the next two years, Challenger said.
The report followed one Thursday from payroll firm Automatic Data Processing that showed the private-sector added 185,000 net new positions last month, down from from 229,000 in June.
The new data indicate the pace of job growth could be slowing, but a more definitive assessment will come Friday.