Planned Layoffs Fall In March

The number of layoff announcements fell to 48,207 in March vs 61,599 in February and 36,594 in March last year. The latest reading is roughly in the middle of trend and isn't offering any unusual signals for tomorrow's employment report. The energy sector, where layoff announcements were very severe in February and January, eased back to second in the industry list, at 7,747 and behind retail where the most announcements were made in March at 8,490. Health care was second at 6,236.