By Alicia Wallace, NCS
(NCS) — Mass layoffs outlined by the likes of Amazon and UPS meant final month was the worst January for job cut announcements since the Great Recession, new knowledge confirmed Thursday.
US-based employers introduced 108,435 job cuts in January, a threefold enhance from layoff announcements in December and greater than double what was tallied in January a yr earlier, in response to Challenger, Gray & Christmas’ newest month-to-month report.
It’s the highest variety of layoff announcements made in January since 2009, Challenger stated.
About 40% of January’s layoff announcements could be tied to 2 corporations: Amazon and UPS, which outlined plans for 16,000 and 30,000 job cuts, respectively. Last month’s layoff announcements had been restricted to 5 industries – transportation, know-how, well being care and well being merchandise, chemical and monetary, in response to the report.
“Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in the first quarter, but this is a high total for January,” Andy Challenger, chief income officer at the outplacement and govt teaching agency, stated in an announcement. “It means most of these plans were set at the end of 2025, signaling employers are less than optimistic about the outlook for 2026.”
Last yr, the US labor market noticed the weakest job growth exterior of a recession since 2003, Bureau of Labor Statistics knowledge reveals.
And, primarily based on Challenger’s tallies, there wasn’t a dramatic turnaround in the first month of 2026.
In January, US-based employers introduced hiring plans for 5,306 staff. That’s the lowest complete ever for the month of January, in response to Challenger, which started monitoring hiring announcements in 2009.
New knowledge launched Wednesday by payroll agency ADP confirmed that private-sector hiring elevated by just 22,000 jobs in January.
The greatest causes cited for the month’s deliberate cutbacks had been contract loss (30,784), adopted by market and financial circumstances (28,392), restructuring (20,044) or closures (12,738), in response to the report. Artificial intelligence was cited for 7,624 cuts final month and tariffs had been cited for 294 cuts, Challenger famous.
“It’s difficult to say how big an impact AI is having on layoffs specifically,” he stated. “We know leaders are talking about AI, many companies want to implement it in operations, and the market appears to be rewarding companies that mention it.”
The-NCS-Wire
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