Houston Jobs More Secure in 2010

This piece of good news from a report in the Houston Business Journal:

Houston companies have been doing 93 percent less downsizing so far in 2010 than the same period last year, according to new figures released this week by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

Through April 2010, there were just 1,430 announced job cuts in Houston, down from the 19,423 job cuts from January to April 2009. The biggest cuts during that time period came from Schlumberger Ltd. and LyondellBasell, according to Challenger. In 2009, Houston-based employers announced 31,029 job cuts.

In January 2009, Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB) announced it would lay off 5 percent of its work force, then two months later said it would have to make even more cuts. Meanwhile, LyondellBasell subsidiary Equistar Chemicals LP also performed a couple rounds of layoffs.

Job cuts in Texas overall fell nearly 64 percent between 2009 and 2010. There were 3,373 job cuts in April 2010, down from 9,322 cuts during the same month last year.
Layoffs during the first four months of this year were also down by 84 percent from the same four-month period in 2009.

Houston and Texas are both mimicking the nation, which saw the number of planned job cuts announced by employers drop sharply in April to 38,326, 43 percent fewer than the 67,611 in March, according to Challenger.

The consultancy said May marks the beginning of what is typically the slowest job-cutting period of the year. However, with the pace of downsizing already below pre-recession levels, the summer slowdown may not be as significant this year, it said.