The retail sector was especially hard hit, accounting for 30 percent of December's job cuts. This included an announcement January 4 that Sears, Roebuck and Co. will close 89 stores and cut 2,400 people. Montgomery Ward & Co., which employs about 32,000 nationwide, said it is going out of business, closing all 250 of its stores.

While the unemployment rate held steady at 4 percent in December, workers employed in manufacturing jobs faced mounting layoffs. The Labor Department figures report that 62,000 manufacturing jobs were eliminated in December, bringing job losses in this sector to 180,000 for the year. Since April 1998, some 580,000 manufacturing jobs have been eliminated.

Just in the past few weeks, General Motors, Whirlpool, Union Pacific, Outboard Marine, Gillette, Xerox, Aetna, and Unisys have announced a total of nearly 30,000 job cuts. GM, for example, announced it was idling eight plants and about 21,000 workers in the United States and Canada for a week in an effort to reduce large inventories. Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler have also chopped production this month.

Not only are factories laying off workers, they are also cutting the hours of those still employed. The factory workweek fell by 0.8 hours in December, the biggest drop since January 1996. Overall, the average workweek fell 0.2 hours in December to 34.1 hours.  
 
 
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