America’s jobs market is stuck in neutral.
US employers announced far fewer cuts in November as companies tried to navigate a messy economic backdrop — tariffs, softer demand, and vibes-based uncertainty.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported on Thursday that planned layoffs fell 53 percent from October, dropping to 71,321.
That’s still 24 percent higher than this time last year, and the biggest November total in three years.
‘Layoff plans fell last month, certainly a positive sign,’ Andy Challenger, the firm’s workplace expert and chief revenue officer, said.
‘That said, job cuts in November have risen above 70,000 only twice since 2008: in 2022 and in 2008.’
Telecom, tech, food, services, and retail companies led the cuts.
Big phone and tech players — including Verizon and Apple — shed thousands of workers in November.
Telecom alone slashed 15,139 jobs, its worst month since April 2020, when the pandemic forced widespread shutdowns.
For the year, telecom layoffs are up a staggering 268 percent.
Other industries aren’t doing much better: tech job losses are up 17 percent in 2025, food distributors (especially those that produce beef) are up 26 percent, and service-sector layoffs have climbed 64 percent.
All told, employers have announced roughly 1.2million cuts so far this year — 54 percent more than during the first 11 months of 2024.
And hiring hasn’t kept up. Planned additions totaled just 497,151 positions year-to-date, the lowest level since 2010 and down 35 percent from the same period last year.
But despite the wave of announced cuts, first-time unemployment claims haven’t surged.
The result is a labor market stuck in what economists like to call a ‘no fire, no hire’ phase — companies aren’t adding workers, but they’re not letting them go en masse either.
The economists at Challenger, Gray & Christmas said there are four main reasons for the sudden surge in layoffs: recent corporate restructuring efforts, AI’s advancement, a souring consumer economy, and downstream impacts from the federal government’s DOGE efforts.
So far, efforts to make companies smaller and more agile — like recent cuts at Hewlett-Packard and the 34,000 let go from UPS — have contributed 178,531 layoffs this year, the firm found.
Amazon’s 30,000-employee layoff has been the headline for AI-based job losses this year.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimates 71,683 Americans have lost their jobs to AI since 2023.
An estimated 245,086 jobs are attributed to the souring economy,
And cuts to DOGE, which have slashed employees that work directly for the federal government and cancelled contracts with businesses that help Washington, have led to 293,753 planned layoffs so far this year.
Written by Ben Shimkus for The Daily Mail ~ December 4, 2025
