Notices of closures and layoffs continue to pour in to Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity as unemployment claims surged by more than 128% last week.
Gannett Publishing plans to cut 109 jobs as it permanently closes its entire production operation in Sterling Heights starting on July 7.
Aramark Campus, LLC is also cutting 137 employees after the company learned it “would not be retained to provide food/facilities services at Wayne State University beyond June 30, 2025.”
Allegan County’s Conagra Brands plans to layoff 75 when it shuts down operations and closes its facility in Fennville “to improve efficiencies and effectiveness within its supply chain network.”
“The decision to close the Fennville Facility will affect all employees’ employment and is expected to be permanent,” the company wrote in its notice to the state.
Others include the layoffs of 121 workers at Heartland Recreational Vehicles in Sturgis, 41 at Quality Metalcraft in Macomb and Wayne counties, 188 at Tribar Technologies in Wixom, 40 at Flagstar Bank in Troy, and others.
Over the next few months, at least 725 workers will receive pink slips in Michigan from companies required by law to submit the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications, although many aren’t.
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The notices are only necessary for facility closures that result in the loss of 50 or more employees in a month, or layoffs of 500 or more employees, or layoffs of more than 50 that impact a third or more of a company’s workforce, according to the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.
Plenty of other Michiganders working for smaller companies are filing into the unemployment line, as well.
An analysis of unemployment claims across the country found the number in Michigan jumped 128.34% last week over the week prior, while the figure was 122.23% higher than the same week last year, according to the personal finance website WalletHub.
That put Michigan dead last on the site’s list of States Where Unemployment Claims Are Decreasing the Most at a time when new claims nationally are down 5.4%.
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U.S. Department of Labor data released Thursday shows 12,287 people in Michigan filed for unemployment the week ending May 3, up from 5,381 the prior week.
Nick Assendelft, spokesman for the state’s Unemployment Insurance Agency, told the Detroit Free Press in an email the biggest job losses came from the manufacturing sector, followed by accommodation and food services, administration and support, and waste management and remediation.
Michigan’s 128.34% jump in claims last week was astronomically higher than all other states, with the next closest increase in New Hampshire at 81.05%. Others among the top 10 biggest increases include Maryland at 30.38%, Alaska at 21.73%, Minnesota at 11.68%, District of Columbia at 10.31%, Oregon at 10.26%, Virginia at 9.46%, Ohio at 9.23%, and Washington at 9.05%, according to WalletHub.
It’s the same situation with the 122.23% increase in Michigan claims last week versus the same week in 2024.
Over the last year, Michigan’s unemployment growth has outpaced every other state by a wide margin, with its 5.5% jobless rate for March marking a 1.3 percentage point increase over the last year.
The trend equates to 69,000 more Michiganders out of a job than in March 2024, putting Michigan’s unemployment rate second only to Nevada’s 5.7% for the highest rate in the nation. Nevada’s weekly claims declined by 6.61% last week, according to WalletHub.
“One culprit is the Biden Administration’s electric vehicle mandate, which has caused thousands of auto-industry layoffs. Michigan has been shedding manufacturing jobs since summer 2023 and has lost about 13,000 in the last year,” the Wall Street Journal noted in an April editorial.
The news site faulted Gov. Gretchen Whtimer and Democratic lawmakers for creating a “hostile business environment” during a Democratic government trifecta in 2023 and 2024 that repealed the state’s right to work law, mandated prevailing-wage to shut out non-union contractors, and raised the income tax rate to 4.25% from 4.05%.
“Ms. Whitmer recently pitched raising the corporate tax rate to 8% from 6%,” the editorial read. “Nearly 90% of businesses that would be affected employ fewer than 100 workers.”