Last year, the fewest number of job-cut announcements since 1990 were announced.
That's despite the large number of store closings _ more than 7,400 _ and retail job losses, Chicago-based consulting employment company Challenger, Gray & Christmas said.
But the fewer cuts last year may indicate a dire risk for this year: more job cuts.
"The tight labor market, coupled with uncertainty surrounding health care and tax legislation, possibly kept employers from making any long-term staffing decisions," said John Challenger, the company's CEO. "However, 2018 may see an increase in job cut announcements, as companies realign with consumer demand."
Still, companies' projections of the number of people they plan to hire are the highest on record.
Employers nationally announced plans to hire more than 1.1 million workers this year, 27 percent more than the 868,702 announced last year and 74 percent more than the 630,477 in 2012.
The total number of jobs cuts announced in 2017 was 418,770, 20.5 percent fewer than the 526,915 cuts announced in 2016. In 1990, the number of announced job cuts was 316,047. Challenger, Gray & Christmas has job cut data back to 1989.
A significant number of cuts, 191,295 (45 percent) were a result of cost-cutting, companies said. Businesses closing accounted for 106,216 (25 percent), and 64,216 (15 percent) were from restructuring.
U.S.-based employers announced 32,423 job cuts in December, a 7.4 percent decrease from November's 35,038, and 3.6 percent decline from the 33,627 cuts in December of 2016.
"The retail pivot that caused thousands of store closures and job cuts was not seen in any other industry this year," Challenger said. "While companies in the pharmaceutical, health care, construction and food industries did announce more job cuts than last year, it was nothing like the energy cuts seen in the last two years or the financial cuts seen during the recession."
Last year, the retail industry announced 76,084 job cuts, up 28.2 percent from 2016, when there were 59,324 job cuts, much of them, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said, tied to thousands of store closings and a shift to online retail.
On Thursday, Macy's announced 5,000 job cuts, including the closing of seven previously unidentified stores. Also Thursday, Sears announced it will close 64 Kmart and 39 Sears stores.
