Layoff announcements ballooned in January, hitting the highest level for the month since 2009, according to a Thursday report from the global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
That should come as no surprise, given tens of thousands of job-cut announcements in recent weeks from the likes of Amazon, UPS, and Pinterest, as companies claim the need to make room for investments in artificial intelligence, reorient business plans in uncertain times, reduce bureaucracy, or compensate for the rash of pandemic-era hiring.
“Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in the first quarter, but this is a high total for January,” Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a statement. “It means most of these plans were set at the end of 2025, signaling employers are less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026.”
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Indeed, companies’ hiring plans, at 5,306 in January, were the lowest for the month since Challenger began logging hiring plans in 2009.
Meanwhile, Challenger tracked 108,435 layoff announcements from US firms in January, more than double the 49,795 cuts announced the same month last year. It was the highest January total since 2009, when 241,749 layoff plans were reported.
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January’s layoff plans come on the heels of the 1.2 million job cut announcements Challenger logged for all of 2025, even as layoff announcements slowed in December to the lowest monthly total since July 2024. The reduction was driven by the gutting of federal government positions and reductions in tech and business services.
Official layoff and openings data for December will be released by the federal government later this morning after a short delay caused by the partial shutdown. As it stands right now, the government’s layoff rate has remained low by historical standards, though the hiring rate has also appeared meager.
Emma Ockerman is a reporter covering the economy and labor for Yahoo Finance. You can reach her at emma.ockerman@yahooinc.com.
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