Planned layoffs edged up slightly in October from the month before, while the pace of job cuts remained near a record low, outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas announced Wednesday.

U.S. companies planned to cut 37,986 jobs last month, up 2.2 percent from the 37,151 layoffs planned in September. The number of planned cuts is down 32 percent from the same month of 2009.

The pace of job cutting is also down sharply from the previous year, with 449,258 job cuts announced in 2010, down 62 percent from the comparable period a year ago.

“Job cuts are the lowest they have been in a decade, due in part to a slowly improving economy; if not the fact that many employers have basically cut their workforces to the bare minimum," CEO John A. Challenger said in a press release.

"Unfortunately, the lack of spending by consumers and businesses is stunting demand for new workers," Challenger said. "The modest gains in business activity are currently being met by increasing hours of existing workers."

The biggest job cuts came in the entertainment and leisure sectors, followed by the government and non-profit sectors.