The Biggest Corporate Layoffs of All Time: 24/7 Wall St.

From 24/7 Wall St: Eleven American companies have laid off a total of nearly 600,000 people in the past two decades. Each also fired a large number of employees at one time to earn it a place among the largest corporate layoffs in modern American history.

According to information 24/7 Wall St. has reviewed, large layoffs are almost exclusively the result of two conditions. They happen in industries near the end of their most successful periods, or because of difficult economic conditions.

24/7 Wall St. took data from Challenger Gray & Christmas, which cover layoffs over the past several years. We examined the data by individual company. Some companies fired so many people in one instance that it was enough for them to make the list. In other cases, a company had two or three layoffs that made it qualify. We excluded companies that completely folded.

Two recessions accounted for many of the layoffs. The first was in the 2001 to 2002 period. The other was the deeper downturn of 2007 to 2009. Most of the layoffs not caused by recessions happened because companies in shrinking industries downsized their operations. The automotive sector is one such example. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are all on this list. So are several banks, which were part of the consolidation as the financial industry shrunk after the 2007 credit crisis.

One case that stands out among those on the list is that of the U.S. Postal System. The USPS has cut 90,000 people in three layoffs over the past two decades. It has said it needs to cut another 28,000 people soon because the service loses billions of dollars each year. Unlike most of the other corporations on this list, technology and competition have destroyed the postal system's future. It is easy to make the case that USPS layoffs will continue for several years.

This is the 24/7 Wall St. list of the "Largest U.S. Company Layoffs Ever." It is a good snapshot of what happened in the American economy over the past 20 years as two recessions and a transformation of several industries changed the employment landscape significantly:

Comments

[authorized-user]

10:08 AM on 12/09/2011

The worst examples of employee layoffs are when a CEO and board of directors;

1 siphon off company profits in bonuses, perks, and forgive huge personal loans
2 sell profitable divisions
3 take illegal tax breaks
4 loot the pension fund
5 stop paying health insurance and unemployment premium
6 ignore osha, epa, and sec regulations
7 demand employee give backs and state tax concessions
8 chapter 7 liquidation

[madgrrl]

12:47 AM on 12/13/2011

9. And give themselves a huge bonuses and salary increases equal to the cost of an entire division of employees. "We fire them and keep their salaries, then make other employees do their work!"

[frank1946]

06:59 AM on 12/08/2011

Business goes where the Profits are, not in USA !

Americans seem to encourage then dispise Competition when they get beat ?

Oh, please Tax the Rich we need them in other Nations who like to work !

Who is left in USA actually paying Taxes ? America is Insolvent !

[madgrrl]

12:52 AM on 12/13/2011

1) Profits aren't in the USA now because companies fired everyone and shipped their jobs overseas.
2) Americans love competition - when it's a level playing field...
3) Don't suggest American's don't like to work - our employees are the most productive on the planet - and we get no where near the benefits (aka free education, free health care, beaucoup vacations) as other INDUSTRIALIZED nations. As a matter of fact I have met Europeans who are shocked at how long we spend at work, lack of vacation, lack of family time.
4) The middle class is picking up the tab for the taxes - thank you very much!

[holyghostie]

11:58 PM on 12/07/2011

Has anyone at BOFA been fired or arrested for illegally foreclosing on Active Duty Military personnel engaged in defending our nation? Or....are they off at the company Christmas party boasting about their bonuses?

[madgrrl]

12:55 AM on 12/13/2011

their employees make garbage wages and do what they are told. Funny thing is - Bank of America merged with Nationsbank, which was a company out of North Carolina and many of their employees were military families.

[Ray Temple]

10:19 PM on 12/07/2011

UNION = UNITED ( UNITED States ) ( union dues = Taxes ) any united group of folks are a union no matter how you look at it yeah so we live in a union country we are supposed to be united we stand and we pay dues so get over the I dont like union crap thel folks that are frightend of unions is the wealthy and large corporation cause they gotta pay there fare share and thats dreadful .

[Ray Temple]

10:06 PM on 12/07/2011

Crying wolf again screwem no more bailouts we need to stop suffering and hit rock bottum so we can rebuild sad but true, rise of new business startups out with the old and stale, begging to stay afloat, guess they did not plan a very secure future beter luck next time .See you at the bottum.

[capitaldysfunction]

07:00 PM on 12/07/2011

I've always felt the business section of daily newspapers is the most revolutionary part of the mainstream press. Stories such as this, the amount of CEO salaries, the shenanigans of business polluters, etcetera, make the business section must reading for anyone left of center.

[Father Tom]

04:51 PM on 12/07/2011

Run-of-the-mill deflection story. Note that the "business" section is chock full of them. Blame banks, employers, bush, etc. Anything to draw attention away from the President's dismal failure.

[madgrrl]

12:58 AM on 12/13/2011

He has a Republican around each ankle - trying to prevent any step in the right direction. THEY WON'T LET THE MIDDLE CLASS KEEP THEIR PAYROLL TAX BREAK!

[Nobody78]

04:40 PM on 12/07/2011

More proof that tax breaks and bailouts for corporation do not create jobs.

[gerald4]

03:42 PM on 12/07/2011

US citizens should demand RE-INDUSTRIALIZATION of the USA because that will create a bigger economic pie, create more jobs for US citizens, and create more NATIONAL WEALTH in the USA that could be CONFISCATED by the governments at various levels as taxation to pay for our ever increasing government expenses such as more infrastructure, more teachers, more firefighters, and maybe to also PAY OFF SOME OR ALL OF THE US NATIONAL DEBT that we are expecting our children to pay to the bondholders.

RE-INDUSTRIALIZATION of the USA and Europe would create an increasing economic pie instead of consuming a larger and larger piece of the existing ever shrinking economic pie, and selling or mortgaging our existing NATIONAL WEALTH (borrowing money with privately held assets as collateral) to pay for more and more federal government expenditures that only consumes the NATIONAL WEALTH that was created by others!

I want someone to start a new political party to save the US government by creating conditions that economically require or allow the re-industrialization of the USA to create new wealth. New wealth needs to be created so that this new wealth will be available to be taxed in order for governments at each level can have increased revenues sufficient to pay for their increasing expenses, and also to maybe pay off some of the US National Sovereign debt.

Paper shuffling like the Federal Reserve's QE-1, 2, and 3 buying of securities does nothing to create jobs.

[DFL]

03:11 PM on 12/07/2011

The republican tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and the two republican wars from last decade have led to the worst economy and the worst job market in over 70 years!

[barbra1971]

10:34 PM on 12/07/2011

All who helped to push it through should be voted out to the last person.

[Justtheobvious]

02:29 PM on 12/07/2011

You don't need employees to make trillions on wall street swaps. There is no risk either when taxpayers will be forced to pay losses. We have done nothing but make traditional businesses into bad investments.

[TheGreatRenewal]

02:27 PM on 12/07/2011

This is WHY we do not want so many mergers/acquisitions that permit these Trans-Nationals to become so big and have so much influence on our lives.

[SansCulottes08]

02:24 PM on 12/07/2011

Never Fear! The Job Creators are coming soon with New Jobs for the discarded ex-middle class:

- paupers' grave diggers and crematoria operators to dispose of the corpses of the homeless destitute victims of starvation, disease, hypothermia, frostbite and gangrene
- mercenarie­s to gun down dissenters, strikers and union organizers
- guards and interrogators (trained in all the latest "enhanced" techniques) at the new facilities where all the alleged "terrorists" (ie, dissenters, strikers and union organizers) will be indefinitely detained
- domestic servants of the Ruling Class to drive their limousines, trim their hedges, plant and weed their flower beds, iron their sheets, stuff their mushrooms, ice their caviar, clean and disinfect their toilets, tutor their Ivy League bound prep school brats, mow their croquet lawns, fly their business jets, prepare and wait on the guests at their glittering gourmet dinner parties,
- millions of soldiers to invade and occupy Iran, Pakistan and Yemen
- bodyguards to violently repel the desperate throngs of lice infested, leprosy and TB infected poor who beg for alms whenever a nobleman crosses the public spaces (regrettably, a few will always remain) between their limousines to the guarded doors of the theaters, jewelry stores, gourmet restaurant­s, or corporate headquarte­rs where their class carry on their business in pampered and well protected isolation.

[mxfw9999]

02:12 PM on 12/07/2011

Well when you have to put up with unions and paying for healthcare and other benefits it's no wanoder that we are having lay offs .

[Neuermind]

02:21 PM on 12/07/2011

So it had nothing to do with gross mismanagement by executives who are paid to employ a profitable business model ?

Well that's a relief.

[ruthbirds2]

02:33 PM on 12/07/2011

Could be part of that, They hired too many people to get the work done. So now it is time to cut. The unions have forced boeing and ford to do the cut withall the high cost of benefits

[Justtheobvious]

02:31 PM on 12/07/2011

Which is why wal-mart and other stores make taxpayers pay for their employee's healthcare.

[barbra1971]

10:41 PM on 12/07/2011

Who pays for yours?

[spytheweb]

01:50 PM on 12/07/2011

America has been fattened up and now is the time for corporations to pick their bones for profits.