Mass layoffs spike in 2015, jumping over 10,000

Mass layoffs in Wisconsin jumped over 10,000 last year — much higher than in 2014, according to new DWD data.

The spike in mass layoffs and closings — which financial analysts have said is tied to a global economic slowdown and a manufacturing slump — affected a total of 10,104 workers in 2015, compared to 6,186 workers in 2014.

The 2015 data don’t include the layoffs from Oscar Mayer, whose parent company is shutting down a manufacturing plant and corporate office, impacting about 1,000 people.

That’s because DWD hasn’t yet received a formal layoff or closing notice regarding Oscar Mayer. Companies sometimes send those notices to DWD weeks after news reports or announcements of layoffs, as they’re not required to send those notices until 60 days before the layoffs or plant closings occur.

The layoffs last year were largely concentrated in the Milwaukee area, with 37 percent of the people affected coming from there. None of the other regions in Wisconsin accounted for more than 11 percent of the state’s layoffs.

Past years have seen layoffs more spread out throughout the state, but the 2015 numbers are somewhat skewed by the two largest layoff notices in 2015, both of which came from Milwaukee. The Milwaukee insurer Assurant Health went out of business and eliminated 1,200 positions, while Wells Fargo shut down a Milwaukee office, impacting 839 workers.

Those two layoff notices accounted for almost all of the layoffs in Wisconsin’s finance industry, whose 2,060 laid-off workers made up 20 percent of the state total. But the industry hit hardest by layoffs last year was manufacturing, with the 3,880 layoffs in that sector making up 38 percent of the state’s total layoffs.


— By Polo Rocha
WisBusiness.com

See an earlier WisBusiness.com story on why layoffs are up