Article from 1998 with some historical statistics, good reference.
Companies began downsizing in the late 1970s to cut costs and improve the bottom line. Today, companies with record profits carry on the quest to become lean and mean. More than 3 million jobs have been eliminated each year since 1989, for a loss of 43 million jobs since 1979. Government budget cuts alone have resulted in more than 1.1 million lost jobs in the defense industry since 1987, with another 700,000 cuts expected through 1998.2 To put these numbers in perspective, 50 percent more people have been victims of layoffs than victims of violent crime.