The wild roller coaster that employment indicators are riding provided another drop, but one vastly smaller than a year ago, according to the latest job-cut report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Employers in January announced plans to reduce their payrolls by 71,482 workers, which is the highest figure in five months, according to the report. And still, the outlook is better at the end of January 2010 than it was last January. The total layoffs planned were 70 percent lower than the 241,749 planned job cuts announced during January 2009.

“The increase in January is not necessarily a sign of a recession relapse,” said John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, in a release. “It is not uncommon to see a surge in job-cut announcements to begin the year. Companies are making adjustments based on the previous year’s results and the outlook for the year ahead.”

The job-cut total in January was 59 percent higher than December, when announced layoffs hit a two-year low of 45,094. It was the first month-to-month increase in job cuts since last July, and the largest total since August, when employers announced 76,456 layoffs.

“We are certainly starting 2010 on better footing than a year ago,” Challenger said. “The fact that January job cuts did not exceed 100,000 bodes well for much lighter downsizing this year. Of course, any major shock to the economy could set off a surge in job cuts but, at the moment, conditions appear to have stabilized”

Challenger said that heavy job cuts could continue in retail, an industry in one of its slower sales periods of the year, and other sectors through the first quarter. But using the past as a guide, he said layoffs should slow in the spring and summer.