After the Wall Street collapse that led to the massive bailout of financial institutions, it looked for a time that Kansas might be immune to some of the problems faced by businesses elsewhere.

But lately, more and more evidence of the country’s economic decline has been surfacing in Kansas in the form of layoffs. In the last week alone, four major Kansas employers – two in the Kansas City area and two Wichita - have announced job reductions ranging from 270 employees to 500 employees.

In Wichita two aircraft manufacturing companies, Hawker Beechcraft and Cessna, announced job reductions.  Hawker Beechcraft is cutting about 5 percent, or 500 employees, from its workforce and Cessna has also announced an unspecified number of job reductions.

In the Kansas City area, American Century Investments, announced they are laying off 17 percent of its workforce - approximately 270 workers - with most of the job losses coming from the company’s Kansas City headquarters. The company also experienced layoffs in May, when 90 positions were cut.

Chris Doyle, vice president of corporate communications for American Century Investments, said 95 percent of the layoffs will be taking place in the American Century’s Kansas City headquarters.

Doyle said the Kansas City branch would experience the majority of the cuts because it was the location with the highest concentration of employees. The other 5 percent will take place in American Century’s California office, while the company’s New York and London offices will not be affected.

Doyle said it had not been decided exactly when or in which departments the job cuts will take place, except that portfolio manager positions within the company would not be influenced.

“If the markets go down and the assets go down then that reduces our revenue so what we are doing with these cuts is rescaling the business to be more in line with future revenues,” Doyle told Kansas Liberty. “But it is unfortunate we had to take this step.”

Capital One Home Loans announced it would be closing its Overland Park lending center, resulting in approximately 320 employees losing their jobs. 

According to a Kansas City Business Journal report the workers will continue to receive pay for 60 days while they look for new jobs through Capital One’s career-transition program.

In the report, Capital One Financial spokesperson Julie Rakes said the closing was a “response to the current home-lending environment and to gain better efficiencies.”

The latest layoff reports from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics say Kansas experienced six substantial layoffs in September. Nationally there were 1,292 mass layoffs in September, which was less layoffs than experienced in May, June, July and August. 

Kansas was listed in the October Bureau of Statistics report as a state that has experienced statistically significant unemployment changes in the last year with the September 2008 rates at 4.8 percent, an increase from the 4.0 unemployment rate in September 2007. Manufacturing and financial services were not the only areas affected; the struggling Kansas City Star has laid off more than 300 employees since June.

The October data in the latest national employment statistics released by the US Department of Labor showed the unemployment rate increased .4 percentage points to 6.5 percent, with the number of unemployed increasing from 603,000 to 10.1 million. The number of unemployed has increased by 2.8 million in the last year. 

Employees who lost their job nationwide increased from 615,000 to 4.4 million in October. 

According to the Kansas 2008 Economic Report, 70 percent of the population in Kansas older than 16 is either already working or looking for work - factors that should indicate a large pool of employees for the state. 

However, the number of available positions has decreased. In 2008 there were approximately 46,584 job vacancies in the state. In 2007 there were 52,230 vacancies with healthcare the leading job category for vacancies both years. The report also projects an increased 12.3 percent unemployment projection between 2004 to 2014, with the 2004 unemployment rate at 5.5 percent.

Rep. Mike Kiegerl, R- Olathe and vice chair of the commerce and labor committee, said he thought the pattern of Kansas' layoffs was a trend that would be continuing for awhile.

“Right now consumers aren’t spending so our economy is contracting and we will just have to see when that’s going to end,” Kiegerl told Kansas Liberty. “We will have to see what the new administration will do in terms of appointing cabinet members and have to see if people have the confidence to start consuming again.”

Kiegerl said he thought government should look at cutting budgets, especially in the area of education, to help stabilize the economy and said raising taxes should be not be considered.

“I definitely have an idea of what not to do and that is to raise taxes as raising taxes in a recession is like pouring gas on a fire,” Kiegerl said. “We do have a very tough budget fight coming up in January but I do believe that raising taxes is the last thing we need now.” 

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has said she would not cut education funding to avoid a tax increase.

The week in Review