Job cuts announced by U.S. employers soared last month, led by reductions at airlines and financial firms, according to a report by a private placement firm. Firing announcements increased to 103,312 last month, up 141 percent from 42,897 in July 2007, Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a statement yesterday. That's the biggest year-over-year percentage increase since November 2001, at the end of the last official recession. The Labor Department last week said that the U.S. economy lost jobs for a seventh straight month in July and the unemployment rate reached the highest in more than four years. "We have seen job cuts increase in the majority of industries that we track," John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of the placement company, said in a statement. "The downturn, which was isolated to the housing and financial sectors just a few months ago, has spread throughout much of the economy."

Retailer files for bankruptcy

Boscov's, the 9,500-employee department-store chain founded in 1911 in Reading, Pa., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Wilmington, Del., yesterday, citing decreased consumer spending. Boscov's, which said in court papers that it's the biggest family- owned full-service department store chain in the United States, will immediately close 10 of its 49 stores. The company said it will borrow as much as $250 million from a group of lenders led by Bank of America Corp. to help it restructure. The collapse of the housing market and increased food and energy costs have led to "a decline in the discretionary spending by consumers," Michael Hughes, Boscov's executive vice president of capital development, said in court papers. A pullback in consumer spending has contributed to more than a dozen retail bankruptcy filings in the past year, including Mervyn's LLC, which operates most of its 177 stores in California, Linens n' Things and Sharper Image Corp.

Casino reports bad luck

Mohegan Sun officials say the casino's net income in the third quarter dropped 89 percent compared with the same period last year, and they're placing some of the blame on gamblers' extraordinary luck. The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority reported net income of $5 million for the three months ending June 30. Mitchell Etess, Mohegan Sun's president and chief executive officer, says the casino had an extremely long streak of bad luck. Gamblers played about $611 million at table games during the quarter, a 6.4-percent increase. The casino kept about 11.6 percent of that gambling money, nearly 5 percent less than it did during last year's quarter. Table game revenues dropped more than 25 percent, to $75.3 million, in the third quarter from the year-ago period.

Japan lifts ban on lobsters

Japan has lifted a ban on imports of North American lobster that had been linked to a misunderstanding over safety, industry officials said last week.