U.S. planned layoffs fell to 37,178 in July, a six-year low, down 50 percent from a revised 75,076 in June, said job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas on Tuesday.
The July figure is 64 percent lower than the 102,971 planned job cuts in the same month a year ago, the firm said.
Meanwhile, Challenger said U.S. employers planned to hire 34,537 workers in July with the biggest job growth coming from the U.S. military. It aims to add 22,000 jobs in a five-year span at a new engineering facility near Springfield, Virginia, it said.
The July slowdown in planned layoffs was due in part on a huge drop in expected job cuts in the automotive industry, Challenger said.
Despite the slowdown, the automotive sector still leads all other sectors for the year with 70,258 planned layoffs, it said.
“The lower-than-expected figure in July could be the calm before the storm. With the exception of 2005, the summer months typically are a time of low job-cut activity, due partly to the fact that many decision makers are on vacation and business in general slows,” said John Challenger, the job placement firm’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.