153,074 Job Cuts Announced in the United States in October 2025
Key Facts
U.S. employers announced 153,074 job cuts in October 2025, up 175% from the same month a year earlier and 183% from September, according to a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas published on November 6, 2025. Announcements totaled 55,597 in October 2024 and 54,064 in September 2025. The report described October’s total as the highest for that month since 2003. The figures reflect announced cut plans collected by the company, not an official measure of net jobs in the economy. The surge came amid weak announced hiring plans during the year, highlighting a widening gap between job-cut decisions and hiring.
Warehousing led October’s total with 47,878 announced cuts, compared with 984 in September, the highest number among sectors. Technology ranked second, announcing 33,281 cuts during the month, up from 5,639 in September. The increase was therefore not concentrated in technology alone, although its monthly total rose sharply. Announced job cuts at technology companies reached 141,159 from the start of 2025 through October. The comparison between the two sectors shows the differing scale of the monthly cut wave, with warehousing leading in October and technology continuing to carry a large cumulative burden.
Cost-cutting was the most frequently cited reason in employer announcements, with 50,437 cases in October. AI adoption ranked second, cited in 31,039 job cuts during the month. These figures place AI among the factors companies linked to reducing jobs, but do not make it the report’s leading cause. Andy Challenger said some sectors are "correcting hiring after the hiring boom during the pandemic," while "increased AI adoption, declining consumer and corporate spending, and rising costs" are pushing organizations to control spending and freeze hiring. This explanation links cut decisions to the combined pressures of costs, spending and changing business needs.
For the year, employers announced 1,099,500 job cuts between January and the end of October 2025, up 65% from 664,839 in the same period of 2024. By contrast, announced hiring plans totaled 488,077 jobs through October, down 35% from the corresponding period in 2024 and the lowest total since 2011. Hiring plans included 372,520 announced seasonal jobs through October, the lowest number for the period since Challenger began tracking the measure in 2012. The company said lower interest rates and strong performance in November could prompt some companies to increase hiring at the end of the season, but it does not expect a strong seasonal hiring environment in 2025. Weak hiring plans add to the picture of a year marked by rising job-cut announcements and declining planned hiring.
The Challenger report came amid disruptions to parts of the government’s labor-market data during the government shutdown. Household survey estimates for October 2025 were unavailable because data were not collected that month. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also canceled the September 2025 Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) release and the October employment situation report. The subsequent JOLTS report for October said job openings remained at 7.7 million, hires at 5.1 million, and layoffs and discharges at 1.9 million, with little change in these measures during the month. With some government readings unavailable, Challenger’s figures took on added importance in tracking company announcements, while remaining a measure of announced cut plans.
Concern over layoff data and a weak labor market weighed on stocks in Thursday’s session on November 6, 2025; the Nasdaq 100 fell about 1.5% and the S&P 500 dropped about 1%. A Reuters report said October’s announcements were based on nearly 450 individual job-cut plans, compared with fewer than 400 plans in September. The next item on the government data calendar was the September 2026 Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, scheduled for November 3, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time. The October 2026 employment situation report was also scheduled for release on November 6, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. These two releases concern periods roughly a year later and do not represent a direct follow-up to the layoff report issued in November 2025.