Employers That Cut The Most Jobs Since The Financial Crisis

On Sept. 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, and the financial crisis was officially underway. Fast-forward five years, and the economy is still down a net total of 240,000 jobs from where it was five years ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). But during the worst of the recession back in 2010, the economy was behind a net total of 8.8 million jobs. Regular cuts, as many workers know all too well, have hit nearly every sector of the economy -- and many sectors are still struggling.

Many jobs have returned, but not enough. "In reality, we've actually made very few improvements to the labor market," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the liberal and non-profit Washington D.C.-based research organization, the Economic Policy Institute. "You also have to consider all the jobs we should have been adding over these past five years, instead of trying to recoup the jobs that have been lost."

But which employers laid off the most workers? To mark the five-year anniversary, AOL Jobs contacted employment services firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which checked its database. The result: a list of the top 10 job-losing employers -- and a window into not only how brutal the crisis has been but who has suffered the most. These workplaces are responsible for 475,918 of the jobs that have been lost since 2008. Four of the ten employers who have cut the most jobs are in the finance industry.

A caveat about the list: The Challenger firm focused on combined totals from announced workforce reductions, which of course is automatically going to put the spotlight on larger employers. See below for the top ten.