The U.S. job market is showing troubling signs of strain as layoffs rise sharply across major industries and fresh data highlights the deepest wave of job cuts since the height of the pandemic.
Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported 946,426 job cuts from January through September, the highest year-to-date total since 2020, when more than two million positions were announced for elimination. Bloomberg’s data compilation shows that only 2020, 2008 and 2009 have recorded greater losses in the past 17 years.
Layoffs in the first three quarters of 2025 are up 55% from the same period in 2024 and 24% above last year’s full total. Challenger said the current figures mark the fifth-highest level since the firm began tracking layoffs 36 years ago.
Government agencies have accounted for the largest share of planned job cuts this year—nearly 300,000—followed by technology firms with 107,878 announced cuts, a decline from last year’s pace. Retail layoffs more than tripled from 2024 to 86,233, while media and news organizations shed 14,060 jobs, up 9% from last year.
Private-sector data has taken on new weight as key government reports, including Bureau of Labor Statistics releases, have gone dark during the federal shutdown. Bloomberg noted several recent corporate layoffs: 900 at Starbucks, 1,800 at Target, 14,000 at Amazon, 1,000 at Paramount and 400 at Molson Coors.
“You’ve got a substantial number of well-established companies making pretty big head cuts,” Dan North, senior economist at Allianz Trade Americas, told Bloomberg. He added that the layoffs “aren’t random.”
Hiring, meanwhile, has slowed dramatically since 2021 as the number of new job openings has fallen. The imbalance has left many job seekers, especially recent college graduates, unable to find work. Fortune recently reported that unemployment among college grads stood at 9.3% in August, more than double the overall rate of 4.3%.
“We’re not just in a low hire, low fire environment anymore,” North told Bloomberg. “We’re firing.”
Where the economy heads next remains uncertain. A weakening job market could push the Federal Reserve toward interest rate cuts — but persistent inflation continues to complicate that decision.
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