Thumbs Down: Mass layoffs up in January

The latest Layoffs news release (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/mmls.pdf) was issued today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Highlights are below.

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In January, employers took 1,761 layoff actions
involving 182,261 workers. Both measures increased in January after four
consecutive over-the-month decreases. Manufacturing events and initial claims
both increased in January to 486 and 62,556, respectively.