NEW YORK: U.S. employers announced 108,435 job cuts in January, the sharpest start to a year since the Great Recession, as reductions in transportation, technology and healthcare drove a surge in planned layoffs, according to a monthly report released this week by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.
The January total rose 205% from December and was up 118% from January 2025, the report said. It marked the highest January figure since 2009, when employers announced 241,749 cuts during the financial crisis. Challenger’s tracking reflects layoff announcements and public plans disclosed by employers, which can unfold over weeks or months.
Transportation led all sectors with 31,243 announced cuts, largely tied to a single large reduction. Challenger said United Parcel Service accounted for 30,000 of those cuts after the company ended a delivery relationship with Amazon. Technology followed with 22,291 announced cuts, including 16,000 at Amazon, while healthcare and products companies reported 17,107 cuts during the month.
Other industries reporting notable totals included retail, media and financial services, according to the report. Challenger also cited 4,701 cuts in chemicals, including reductions attributed to automation and artificial intelligence, and said employers explicitly cited AI for 7,624 planned cuts in January, or about 7% of the month’s total.
Challenger said the most frequently cited reasons for cuts were contract loss, market or economic conditions, and restructuring. The firm also reported 5,306 hiring plans in January, the lowest January total since it began tracking hiring intentions in 2009, underscoring a slower pace of expansion announcements even as some employers continued to add workers in specific roles.
Layoff announcements rise as vacancies cool
The report arrives as other indicators point to a cooling in U.S. labor demand. The government’s monthly employment report for January has been rescheduled for Feb. 11 after a brief federal shutdown disrupted operations at the Labor Department’s statistics agency. The delay means markets and employers have been leaning more heavily on private surveys and earlier official releases for near term signals.
In separate government data, U.S. job openings fell to 6.542 million at the end of December, down 386,000 from November and the lowest level since September 2020, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Hires rose to 5.293 million in December, while the report showed continued declines in openings across several major industries compared with earlier in the year.
Challenger’s totals, while closely watched by investors and corporate planners, measure announced cuts rather than layoffs recorded in payroll data. The firm’s report can capture large planned reductions tied to restructurings or operational changes that may be implemented gradually, and it does not directly translate into the monthly job count that will be released by the government.
Private hiring slows in January
A private report from ADP estimated U.S. private sector employment increased by 22,000 jobs in January. ADP said annual pay growth was 4.5% from a year earlier, a pace consistent with moderating wage pressures compared with earlier periods of high inflation. The ADP figures are based on payroll processing data and are not the same as the government’s employment report.
Federal Reserve officials have said labor market conditions remain an important input to interest rate decisions as the central bank weighs progress on inflation against the risk of weakening employment. The next broad snapshot of hiring, unemployment and wage growth is due with the rescheduled government employment report on Feb. 11, alongside continued updates from weekly and monthly labor indicators. – By Content Syndication Services.