Challenger, Gray & Christmas says last month was the worst January for layoffs since the tail end of the Great Recession. Employers outlined plans to cut 108,435 jobs in January, according to the outplacement firm—more than double a year ago and triple December's total. It was the highest January figure since 2009, when 241,749 job cuts were announced, and the highest monthly figure since October last year, when 153,074 cuts were recorded. At the same time, companies reported plans to bring on only 5,306 workers, the weakest January hiring tally since the firm started tracking the data in 2009, CNBC reports.
The cuts are being led by transportation and tech. UPS accounts for more than 30,000 of the planned reductions, helping make transportation the top sector for cuts, while Amazon's plan to eliminate about 16,000 largely corporate roles pushed technology into second place. There were also major cuts in the healthcare sector. "Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in the first quarter, but this is a high total for January. It means most of these plans were set at the end of 2025, signaling employers are less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026," the company's Andy Challenger said in a news release.
Official government data has yet to reflect a broad deterioration, though new weekly jobless claims ticked up to 231,000 at the end of January, partly blamed on severe winter weather, and remain low by historical standards. Still, more than 100 companies filed formal layoff notices with the Labor Department last month. Reuters reports that loss of contracts was the main reason for January's planned layoffs, with other factors including department closures, store closures, and artificial intelligence. The official government jobs report has been delayed, but payroll firm ADP says hiring was a lot weaker than expected last month.
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