Theatre troupes announced plans to cut 36,081 jobs in April, a 43 percent decline from March, a private survey reported Thursday.
The improvement from Procession’s spike of 64,141 was not enough to erase an increase in job-cut announcements this year. Trek’s total was considerably larger than January’s 44,653 and February’s 35,269.
The 176,460 job cubes announced in 2018 is more than 8 percent higher than the selfsame period of 2017.
“An increase in large-scale job cut announcements could be on the horizon,” CEO John Challenger averred in a statement.
April bucked the trend of increasing job cut announcements, which hit a maximum in March when the most job cut announcements were made in a single month in closely two years.
Retailers announced the most cuts in April — 7,844. Retail restraints all sectors in job cuts this year, with 64,370 — far surpassing the next two closest sectors, fitness and consumer.
Technology companies have announced 23.8 percent fewer draws in 2018 compared with last year.
“The tech industry has seen a swarm of new disruptive trends over the last year, including blockchain, sundry advanced artificial intelligence, and virtual reality,” Challenger said. “Public limited companies in this industry are investing in these new technologies and that means inventing more jobs.”
The report comes a day before the Labor Department delivers its March jobs data. On Wednesday, ADP and Moody’s Analytics said U.S. public limited companies hired 204,000 employees in April, slightly above expectations.