Is the glass half full? Challenger expresses some optimism based on December.
The 2025 Challenger report headline is Highest Q4 Layoffs Since 2008; Lowest YTD Hiring Since 2010
U.S.-based employers announced 35,553 job cuts in December, down 50% from the 71,321 job cuts announced in November. It is down 8% from the 38,792 job cuts announced in the same month last year, according to a report released Thursday from global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
December’s total is the lowest monthly total since 25,885 cuts were announced in July 2024. It is the lowest December total since 2023, when 34,817 cuts were announced. It is the fourth time this year job cuts were lower than the corresponding month one year earlier.
U.S.-based employers announced 35,553 job cuts in December, down 50% from the 71,321 job cuts announced in November. It is down 8% from the 38,792 job cuts announced in the same month last year, according to a report released Thursday from global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
In 2025, employers announced 1,206,374 job cuts, an increase of 58% from the 761,358 announced in 2024. Annual job cuts are at the highest level since 2020 when 2,304,755 cuts were announced. It is the seventh highest annual total since 1989.
In the fourth quarter, employers announced plans to cut 259,948, the highest fourth-quarter total since 2008 when 460,903 cuts were recorded. It is up 29% from the 202,118 cuts recorded in the third quarter of 2025 and up 71% from the 152,116 cuts recorded in the same quarter one year prior. It is the highest quarterly total since the first quarter of 2025 when 497,052 cuts were announced.
Seventh Highest Layoff Total in History
- 2020: 2,304,755
- 2001: 1,956,876
- 2002: 1,466,823
- 2009: 1,288,030
- 2003: 1,236,426
- 2008: 1,223,993
- 2025: 1,206,374
Optimism
“The year closed with the fewest announced layoff plans all year. While December is typically slow, this coupled with higher hiring plans, is a positive sign after a year of high job cutting plans,” said Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
I don’t agree with that optimism. October and November were huge months. December got better.
More importantly, it does not remotely match what corporate CEOs are saying (and doing). Check out some of the links below.
Related Posts
December 27, 2025: Only a Third of CEOs Plan to Hire Workers in 2026
66% will fire workers or play wait and see with AI.
January 7, 2026: ADP: White Collar Jobs Clobbered in 6 of the Last 7 Months
Professional and Business Services jobs are down five months and seven of last eight.
January 9, 2026: Nonfarm Payrolls Rise by 50,000 with 76,000 in Negative Revisions
2025 closed out with a thud. Here are the details.
Assuming there are no more negative revisions (and what is the likelihood of that), the year-over-year employment gain was just 610,000.
I expect the next benchmark revision to wipe that out. Thud!
The above post explains in much more detail the “experimental” benchmark revision series.
January 9, 2026: AI Is Killing Select White Collar Jobs. What’s Hot and What’s Not?
Private education and health accounted for over 100 percent of job gains in 2025.
BLS and ADP are in agreement over white collar jobs.
When the only job strength is in recession-proof health care, generally the economy is already in recession.
These are not layoffs.
Layoffs were when General Motors would tell you not to come in for a couple of weeks. Sometime for a month or more for a big retooling changeover. Then they would call you back to work.
These are terminations. You go to HR. They give you your folder. You go home and start looking for a job. That’s not a layoff.
that Barack OBiden Yellen financial time bomb will wreak havock
the nastiness of it hasnt even started yet
The economy is still reeling within 12 months of Birdbrain Biden regime ending.
The president’s approval ratings are currently at 36-41%. What will happen when the historically high 224% US composite equity to GDP valuation ratio: the 1982 to 2026 13/33 year :: x/2.5x Super Bubble … reaches its nadir point in 10 to 11 months? My guess is that there will still be a solid 28% of core of irretrievably Fox News brainwashed who will still support the Big Oddly Orange Face … the BOOF.
When the administration said wait till next year last year, is this the year we get the golden age or is it in 2027 after dems take congress and start restraining this clown?
Trump Turdonomics™ doesn’t seem to be working.
And whatever happened to 90 deals in 90 days. Did any deal get done?
This is an entirely new type of Golden Age:
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Followup on Value City Furniture. The manufacturing facilities, Kroehler, in the Carolinas shuttered over the Holidays leading to 300 more manufacturing jobs lost. They’ve filed a lawsuit against ASI:
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article314304531.html
Thanks
A friend is closing his 30 year old graphics arts business and has let 4 employees go.
He cites AI as driving his business model into a wall.
I am fielding a record number of applications for internships and jobs.
Interestingly the BLS numbers this week showed 4.9 increase in productivity, SERO increase in wages and 3.6% annualized inflation.
Citibank’s commodities trader just predicted $70.00 crude.
I smell smoke coming from the economy, just can’t see the flames yet.
I have been playing more and more with AI after watching a ton of YouTube videos of clueless people that know nothing building full fledged platforms, games and apps.
I ran across this one called “Zero Agent” although I worry it may be full of spyware but the capabilities are truly amazing.
The funny thing is the video is AI generated but the tool is real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRZxJb1diRU
Supposedly the latest claude agents were written by claude entirely!
We’ve got a non-graphic designer req out, and are getting absolutely snowed with graphic designer resumes.
We’re in a recession.
An Las Vegas tourism is down 7%, which is levels last seen 20 years ago.
Signs have been allaround. Concrete company truck 20 truck cleaned and stored 2 truck and drivers on call One job this week 6 hours. Skyscraper condos 80% empty, Sales signs now for rent 2 months free rent. New price again and then againwith no offers. But markets only react to fabricated paper numbers not what can be physically seen and is actually happening. 2026 is going to be rough job hunting with little to no jobs choices.
Funny you mention signs. On a recent trip I saw all sorts of signs/billboards advertising “executive offices” for $399 or $499/month. At that price, why not rent one and live in it as an apartment? Heck, rent two for $800 and double the size of your home!
“Saks’ purchase of debt-laden Neiman Marcus made bankruptcy the “likely destination” for the retailer, said retail analyst Neil Saunders in a note to clients Wednesday. He said that the “only real surprise has been the speed of the collapse,” which occurred roughly a year after the deal closed.”
Saks Global files for bankruptcy protection amid luxury market strains | CNN Business
Trickle down fantasies drying up.
Economic cycles exist for a reason: they correct the excesses and imbalances that build up over time. Job losses, while painful, are an unavoidable part of that reset. Every attempt to delay these cycles only magnifies the eventual correction, guaranteeing a far more violent swing when reality finally asserts itself. And if we continue refusing to let the system rebalance on its own, the consequence won’t just be a recession—it will be a full‑scale reset of the monetary framework we rely on today.
correct
Hard to do when you have an economically illiterate President clamoring for ever higher deficits and lower interest rates.
The 7 highest years all coincide with the start of and duration of recessions. Triple B is spot on. Notice that the comment about illiterate President comes in per usual in this comment section but the last 2 major non-pandemic recessions were with Presidents of both parties and both chose/required/tolerated higher deficits and Fed-cocomitant lower/zero interest rates. Party is irrelevant–everyone wants the party cycle, like life itself, to go on forever sans comeuppances and consequences. We’ll see how 2026 goes vis a vis the year after the 7th highest layoff total in the chart. I’m betting recession/slowdown/pain and a Congress and President in the camp of throwing everything at it, futily, to avoid the pain–with their main concern being politically and our main concern being economically. We are not the same.
Not just the current president, but both parties from the president and nearly all of congress and all of their state apparatus over the past several decades. If the Democrats win the next elections and continue with the same deficit spending and interest rate repression, it won’t get any better.
Townhomes on the east end of Panama City Beach have been selling at 2021 price levels.
Sales volume has noticeably increased, and also due to the 30 yr conventional mortgage at 6%, VA and FHA around 5.5%. Recall rates were as high as 8% around 2023.