Bush boom keeps booming!

Companies set highest number of cuts since January while hiring plans tumbled.

The number of job cuts planned by U.S. employers jumped in September to the highest level in eight months while hiring announcements fell sharply, a job search firm said Tuesday....

U.S. businesses announced 107,863 job cuts in September, up from 74,150 job cuts in August, a gain of 45.5 percent, according to Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which keeps track of monthly job-cut announcements.

It was the worst month for job-cut announcements since January, when 117,556 cuts were announced. September's job-cut plans were 41 percent higher than the 76,506 cuts announced in September 2003.

Meanwhile, companies announced plans to add just 16,166 new jobs, down from 132,105 in August....

This September was the second-worst for cuts since Challenger started keeping track in 1993, behind only September 2001....

--CNN/Money; link via Raw Story

That's not a lot of Septembers, but it's the worst since September 2001.