The layoffs at Lancaster General Health, said spokesman John Lines, were different.

As of Monday, nine drivers who shuttled Lancaster General College of Nursing & Health Sciences students between parking lots on New Holland Avenue and the college's downtown campus will lose their jobs.

But seven of the nine, said Lines, already have another job — three took positions at Easton Coach, which on Monday will begin providing the shuttle service. Four found positions elsewhere at Lancaster General Health. The remaining two are being considered for other jobs there.

The layoffs, said Lines, resulted not from a need to downsize, but a realization that "we're a health care provider, a medical college," and driving buses "is not really part of our our core mission."

But in another way, the layoffs at Lancaster General are representative of an economic trend locally, if not statewide.

The wave of mass layoffs that characterized late 2008 and much of 2009 seem to have ebbed. Layoffs continue, but at a smaller pace — nine here, six there, four elsewhere.

Though on firmer footing now than a year ago, many businesses want to keep cutting costs, just in case. Others, said Dr. Antonio Callari, a professor of economics at Franklin & Marshall College, might see cuts now as a preemptive strike, in case economic conditions worsen.

"If companies face, or expect, soft demand conditions for the long haul, if they are coming to terms with living with smaller markets, they lay off people they might have been holding on to while they were hoping for a quicker recovery," said Callari.

"I don't expect this recovery to come full force for quite a while, and so I think that, over the course of this year, we will be seeing more and more of these types of layoffs," he said.

Slight drop in jobless
Lancaster County's unemployment rate rose to a 26-year high of 8.0 percent in October. Since then it's retreated, but only a little: It dipped to 7.5 percent in November, then climbed back to 7.7 percent in December, the latest full month for which figures are available.

"Throughout this recession we've seen layoffs both large and small," said Ryan Horner, work-force analyst for the state Department of Labor & Industry. "The ones you hear about tend to be the larger ones. But businesses off all sizes have trimmed their work forces."

"And the volume of job losses definitely slowed notably in the second half of 2009," he said.

Last year, the wave of mass layoffs was cresting locally.

The company that publishes the Sunday News, Lancaster Newspapers Inc., laid off 100 employees through the company— 60 full time and 40 part time — when it combined the daily Intelligencer Journal and Lancaster New Era newspapers in June.

Last fall it was announced that an Arkansas-based firm, Windstream, would acquire D&E Communications in Ephrata and lay off 239 people, 70 percent of the company's work force. Those layoffs began in January 2010 and are scheduled to be completed by April.

In April, American LaFrance, a fire-truck manufacturing firm, closed and idled 200 workers. In August, Fleetwood Enterprises in Elizabethtown closed, idling 80 workers.

Late last year NTN-BCA, which manufactures auto equipment and ball bearings, announced it would close its Lititz plant in spring 2010, idling 133 workers. And in early January, Conestoga Wood Specialties in East Earl announced it was laying off 80 workers — just four months after it had laid off 40 employees.

Amidst these big numbers, smaller layoffs sometimes, though not always, generate much smaller headlines.

In late January, Lancaster Newspapers laid off six full-time Sunday News staff members. Four Lancaster City firefighters lost their jobs in early February as a result of budget cuts.

Due to state budget cuts, five staffers at the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum in Strasburg were laid off earlier this year, as were four staffers at Landis Valley Museum, and two at the Ephrata Cloister.

Citing a drop in donations, the Water Street Rescue Mission laid off one full-time employee and two part-timers in December. Also in December, Junior Achievement laid off four employees, two full-time and two part-time.

The county laid off 19 workers in December; GeoNova Publishing closed in late November, idling 20.

Horner said that between November and December 2009, the county lost 300 total jobs. "If you look back on the first quarter of [2009], from January to February there were 1,700 jobs lost. Between February and March, 2,400 jobs were lost.

"The pace has definitely slowed," Horner said, "It's been ramping down."

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that nationwide, the number of "mass layoffs" — defined as the idling of 50 or more employees — slowed in the final quarter of 2009. Nationwide there were 2,043 "mass layoff events" in the fourth quarter, down from 3,582 in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Callari said the "dribble of layoffs" signals that the economic downturn is bottoming out — though he doesn't rule out the possibility of "round two," a double-dip slump.

Though the numbers aren't as large, he said even smaller layoffs can increase workplace anxiety as workers who remain employed feel compelled — or are required — to pick up the slack and work harder.

Connie King, of construction firm Earl King Inc., is president of the Building Industry Association of Lancaster County. "The building industry is now into the smaller layoffs — a few people here and there," she said. Most companies simoply "do not have much else to cut... we just laid off our final two carpenters who have been with us for over 30 years," though the firm hopes to bring them back in March or April when some commercial projects break ground.

"We're also struggling with trying to build business back up, keeping existing customers satisfied and continuing to stay on top of changing regulations and codes with greatly reduced staff," she said. "This is stressing the workers that are still employed and especially the owners."

Callari also suggested that some of the smaller-scale layoffs may be due to "the technological reorganization taking place in the workplace. Companies might feel more pressure now ... to look for and find more efficient ways of getting things done."

Perhaps like Lancaster General deciding that its transportation needs are better served by an outside firm than in-house.

The decision to eliminate the nine driver positions "wasn't an economic move," said Lancaster General spokesman Lines. Rather Easton Coach — which provides Red Rose Access service to the Red Rose Transit Authority — gives Lancaster General "an experienced transportation company that will enable us to expand service to our students and our community.

"If anything, changing to Easton will enable us to grow," Lines said. "We are hiring at Lancaster General Health."