Job Layoffs in April Fall to Record Low

According to today's BLS report on Job Openings and Labor Turnover, job layoffs and discharges fell to 1.5 million in April, the lowest level since the BLS started tracking "involuntary separations" in 2001 (see chart above).  This is a positive sign that the labor market is gradually stabilizing as job layoffs are becoming much less frequent, and are in fact now way below the pre-recession average of almost 2 million when the jobless rate averaged 5.5 percent.  Read more here at The Enterprise Blog.

Update: The chart below displays monthly layoffs as a percent of total civilian employment to adjust for the number of jobs, and the pattern is the same as the unadjusted number of layoffs in the graph above.  By either measure, layoffs are at the lowest level since the BLS started tracking "involuntary separations" in 2001.