Incomplete list of job loss announcements and shutdowns.

California: More proof you brick-n-mortar store owners can’t blame the internet/high tech for your demise; Palo Alto based software company Palantir just took over two years old Kimono Labs, and as a result Kimono’s public ‘cloud’ service will end, affecting 125-thousand users!

Colorado: CB & Pott’s shutting down their 42 years old West Campus restaurant.  The operators are opening a new restaurant in a new location “to be closer to our core guests.”

Idaho:  Albertsons-Safeway is doing it again, killing off an independently owned grocery store chain, this time on the west side of The Gem State.  Paul’s Market has sold out to the evil corporate giant (who caused the demise of Washington’s Haggen grocery chain last year, killing off thousands of jobs!).  Reports are just coming in, but it sounds like three Paul’s Markets will be shutdown and four will be rebranded as Albertsons stores.  Idaho’s Department of Labor has yet to publish any required WARN regarding the shutdowns.

Michigan:  More proof you brick-n-mortar store owners can’t blame the internet/high tech for your demise; California based video game maker Activision just revealed it eliminated jobs at its Minneapolis ops, without giving numbers.  Administrators blame declining interest in their Guitar Hero and Skylanders brands.  What automotive industry recovery?  Close tolerance diesel & gas motor machining company Royal Oak Boring just announced it will eliminate 125 jobs between now and the end of March!  They are shutting down their Port Huron operation due to being unable to get debt financing.

Missouri: In Saint Louis, yet another restaurant shutdown.  After ten years bistro Soulard shutting down this weekend.       

New York: Revere Copper Products eliminating 40 jobs due to low prices for metals.  In NYC, after six years Little Shoe Store shutting down their brick-n-mortar shop by the end of March.  High rent and utilities forcing the operator to switch to internet sales only.

North Carolina: For the second time since January, Germany owned Daimler-Freightliner is conducting mass layoffs, by the end of this week!  This time an additional 1-thousand 250 people will be let go from the Mount Holly and Cleveland factories!     In January Daimler-Freightliner laid off 936 people from their Cleveland factory!  Local news reports say local charities stated that this latest layoff round was “unexpected” and they are not prepared.  Daimler administrators are now admitting that their sales of Freightliner trucks are ‘crashing & burning’!

North Dakota: In Fargo, the Uptown Gallery shutting down after efforts to bring in a business partner with cash failed.  Last year the owner tried to sell the gallery, but nobody was interested.

Oregon: Japan based Panasonic issued a layoff WARN for their Salem operations, 50 jobs lost by mid-April.

Pennsylvania: More proof you brick-n-mortar store owners can’t blame the internet/high tech for your demise; administrators for the second largest cyber charter school in the state, Agora, revealed they suddenly eliminated jobs last week, but they refuse to say how many.  Local news reports say former employees report between 1-hundred and 150 people were fired without warning!  Cyber school administrators blame lack of state taxpayer funding due to ‘lawmakers’ failing to pass a budget.   However, local news media also published a direct quote from an Agora chairwoman, made back in December: “We have no plans to cut or furlough staff due to the lack of funds we are currently receiving. Please do not fear for your position here at Agora.”-Mary Steffey

After six years Pittsburgh Public Market shutting down by the end of March.  The eatery owner blames lack of customer traffic due to the recent shutdown of Marty’s Market, and the Firehouse farmer’s market.

Tennessee: Knoxville based Cancer Fund of America finally shutdown by federal regulators, two years after national news investigations blew the lid off their scam!  Federal and state government investigators discovered that the majority of donations went to buying “luxury” items for the administrators of the so called cancer charities, not to cancer treatments or research.  Watch the CNN report and stop trowing your money away on medical research ‘charities’!  Apparently there are other scam charities refusing to shutdown despite overwhelming evidence brought against them, so watch out.

WARN=Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification

15 February 2016: Death of the Middle Class!

Former employees who receive severance are not counted as unemployed

The U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) no longer issues mass layoff reports: “On March 1, 2013, President Obama ordered into effect the across-the- board spending cuts (commonly referred to as sequestration) required by the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, as amended. Under the order, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) must cut its current budget by more than $30 million, 5 percent of the current 2013 appropriation, by September 30, 2013. In order to help achieve these savings and protect core programs, the BLS will eliminate two programs, including Mass Layoff Statistics, and all ‘measuring green jobs’ products. This news release is the final publication of monthly mass layoff survey data.”