Almost 1,000 Hawai'i workers were cut from payrolls last month in so-called mass layoffs, in which companies let go 50 or more workers.

A U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows the state's economic downturn continuing to take a toll on employees, with the number of mass layoffs jumping to 14 from three a year earlier.

The layoffs involved 998 workers, versus 217 in January 2008.

Hawai'i wasn't alone in reporting a jump in the jobless, with 47 other states registering an increase in initial jobless claims from mass layoffs. But Hawai'i's mass layoff events grew at a much faster pace than the national average, which was up by 50 percent over a year earlier.

Local companies have tried to cope with the recession here by cutting expenses and in some cases shedding employees. Among those chopping payrolls here last month was Matson Navigation Co., which said it was laying off 10 percent, or 60, of its non-union staff.

Nationally, January was a bad month for the labor market,with more than 235,000 workers fired.

Companies in a wide range of sectors announced tens of thousands of layoffs. Among those companies were Home Depot Inc., Boeing Co., Pfizer Inc. and Caterpillar Inc.

Not all of those cuts were reflected in the government's mass layoffs report, which counts laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits.

Many of the layoffs announced in January will take place over time, meaning that the department's mass layoff figures will likely keep increasing.

In a bit of positive news for the national job market, consulting firm Watson Wyatt said yesterday that the number of large employers planning layoffs has dropped since December, according to its survey of 245 companies last week.

The survey found that the proportion of corporations expecting to cut jobs has dropped to 13 percent from 23 percent.

But more companies are considering other cost savings, such as increasing healthcare premiums, eliminating employee benefits like tuition reimbursement, and reducing matching payments for 401(k)-style retirement plans.

The number of national layoffs last month actually declined slightly from December on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department said.

But the figures were uglier without the seasonal adjustment: mass layoffs jumped to 3,806, from 3,377 in December and 1,647 in January 2008.