A survey, by the Chicago outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, marks November as the worst month for layoffs since January 2002, when large employers cut nearly 250,000 jobs as the nation was trying to shake off the prior-year recession and the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Challenger survey is not a statistical sample of all employers like the unemployment report that the Labor Department will issue Friday. But it is a good barometer of corporate hirings and firings that has kept a running tally of company-announced layoffs each month since 1993.