The Month in Layoffs – July 09

The Fourth of July didn’t put many in BigLaw in a celebratory mood.

Not only did Independence Day fall on a Saturday this year, half screwing us out of a long-weekend, but the week leading up to it and the following week were reminiscent of the dark days around the Ides of March.

The first full month of the second half of the year is now in the books. We have charts and analysis (including an update of an old favorite), after the jump.

We went into July expecting things to be relatively quiet for a few reasons. We thought firms might think there was a shred of reputation to maintain by refraining from layoffs while summers were onsite and last year’s summers were studying for the bar. We also figured things would slow down a bit as firms headed into the summer lull and partners headed to the country for vacation. There was also optimism due to the continuing nice run on the S&P 500, which went from 890 to flirting with 1,000 in the May-July period.

The 141 people laid off in the week ending July 3 was high, but not alarmingly so. The real shock came the next week, when 352 people were laid off. DLA Piper had the biggest single layoff in months, laying off 100 staff and 21 lawyers. Baker & McKenzie contributed 77 more to the total, stripping its China practice.

Fortunately, layoffs plummeted at the end of the month, with the three quietest weeks of the year closing the period.

That was enough to push July past June on total layoffs, and lawyers fared far worse for the month. 150 lawyers were laid off in June; 229 in July. The number of staff laid off was pretty flat, going from 358 to 375.

The number of firms laying people off decreased for the fourth straight month, although the size of the layoffs increased 27%, going from 33.9 to 43.1.

The detailed summary of the weeks’ recaps can be found here (including June because it was subsumed by the Mid-Year Layoff Review):

• This Week in Layoffs – 7/31/09
• This Week in Layoffs – 7/24/09
• This Week in Layoffs – 7/17/09
• This Week in Layoffs – 7/9/09
• This Week in Layoffs – 6/26/09
• This Week in Layoffs – 6/19/09
• This Week in Layoffs – 6/12/09
• This Week in Layoffs – 6/5/09

And there is also the single page with all of the weekly recaps, which can be found under the main layoff tracker link in the nav bar.

Previous editions of The Month in Layoffs are listed below and also have a link on the nav bar.

• The Month in Layoffs – May 09
• The Month in Layoffs – April 09
• The Month in Layoffs – March 09
• The Month in Layoffs – Feb 09
• The Month in Layoffs – Jan 09

Hopefully, August will be even slower than July and we’ll finally find the “week without a layoff” unicorn.

Finally, we catch up with an old fan favorite. Back in March, we broke down the layoffs by day of week and for some reason got a lot of positive feedback on it. We were flipping through old files and found the data, so here it is again, updated through July.

Interestingly, even with several thousand more people laid off, your odds are far and away the worst on Thursdays. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday are all about a push, and Monday layoffs have become slightly less common. (Again, weekend layoffs are usually attributable to layoffs that we only have a month-end date for).

Related posts:

1. The Month in Layoffs – May 09
2. The Month in Layoffs – August 09
3. The Month in Layoffs – Feb 09
4. The Month in Layoffs – September 09
5. The Month in Layoffs – March 09