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I am not saying the whole thing is a sham, but layoff numbers do not directly translate into a like increase in the unemployment rolls. The numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt.



Likewise the numbers work the other way as well.

Speaking as the man who often is tasked to go into companies and "right-size" them, companies will often understate their layoff numbers considerably.

It's almost never good for a company to announce layoffs. Any cost-savings from the layoff can be immediately rescinded by a drop in stock price. So, in order to combat this somewhat, companies will figure in all those things that you talk about into their number -- Retirement, Attrition, Early-Retirement, Employees looking elsewhere when they feel their job's at risk, etc, etc.

If I need to get rid of 50,000 employees, but know that 25,000 are going to leave in some way or another in the next year anyways, I'm not going to announce that I'm laying off 50,000 employees, I'm going to announce I'm laying off 25,000; I just won't replace those other 25,000.

If it ends up being 30 or 35,000 that I need to give pink slips too because they didn't leave as expected, so what?

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