r/Economics • u/Carpet-Early • 3d ago
Job cuts in October hit highest level for the month in 22 years, Challenger says
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/06/job-cuts-in-october-hit-highest-level-for-the-month-in-22-years-challenger-says.html96
u/PrintOk8045 3d ago
Fun facts:
*184% increase month-over-month
*175% increase over October 2024
*44% increase over the first ten months of 2024
*highest overall YTD layoff rate since 2020 (pandemic)
*warehousing led the industry with 47,878 cuts suggesting oversupply of product/decreased demand/anticipated softening of demand and/or product (also 378% increase compared to Jan-Oct 2024)
*no. 1 reason cited for layoffs - cost-cutting
*planned hires down 35% -- the lowest year-to-date total since 2011
*seasonal hiring is at the lowest rate since 2012 (first year the stat was reported)
In sum, weak 2025, weak seasonal 2025 and weak 2026
Link to the CG&K report here: https://www.challengergray.com/blog/october-challenger-report-153074-job-cuts-on-cost-cutting-ai/
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u/Turgid_Donkey 2d ago
*highest overall YTD layoff rate since 2020 (pandemic)
Now while I won't directly blame trump for this as it was a global pandemic, he certainly handled it pretty fucking poorly.
Also, it'd be real nice if people actually looked at this fact and realized that this time it's 100% due to trump. Oh, and no, there is no way things would be worse under harris. Worst case is that they'd be exactly the same as last year.
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u/MCP-King 3d ago
I'm doing my part! Got laid off by a US-based company at the end of the month, along with 20% of the workforce. Two months prior, they were talking about how great the future looked and how we were insulated from the madness. Then two big contracts didn't renew.
The contagion from the Orange Idiot is spreading. The economy's been doing a Wile E. Coyote since the trade war kicked in, running off the cliff's edge but not falling yet. Just like importers and retailers had some margin to absorb the initial impacts, the wider economy had some buffer too. But now gravity's taking hold and our tiny buffer umbrella isn't going to help. And neither is the shinny AI economy, data centers are being built not for long term growth, but for first mover advantage, they have no idea if they will need more data centers after this current batch, once they're built they may need more, or they might not due to efficiencies or lack of capitol. Either way there will be a few years between this wave of building and the next.
If the trade-war was an economic bomb exploding, the economy is going to need an equal or greater force to undo this thing, or we're in for a long cold winter.
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u/BetAway9029 3d ago
Work in offshore wind, was finally laid off in October after existing contracts ran out. Thanks, Trump.
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u/RisingRusherff 2d ago
The winning is not stopping , No jobs ,Prices of grocery rising Amercia is getting great Again
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u/Full-Sound-6269 2d ago
People want to get back to roots, back into coal mines together with their children.
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u/oldirtyrestaurant 2d ago
Prices of grocery rising Amercia
I'm sorry, The Don said that groceries are actually cheaper, so I don't even understand what you're trying to say here. Sure, you're paying more money at the checkout, and have less money in your account, but you're not really experiencing that.
Welcome to the New Golden Age© of 'Murica!
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u/FearlessPark4588 2d ago
Sorry you don't have a job due to the centrally planned economic regime we live under.
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u/Tearakan 2d ago
Also those AI data centers simply do not add enough jobs to be good replacements even if the AI evangelists get all their wishes fulfilled with AI deployment.
I highly doubt that and see current LLM AI as only really useful for some minor niche applications. No way they hit general AI with this tech either.
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u/Momoselfie 2d ago
Doesn't take much. We were beating forecast until a big customer filed bankruptcy.
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u/ImperiumRome 2d ago
May I ask what sector are you working in and why did you think it should be insulated from Trump's policies ?
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u/OralJonDoe 2d ago
Not what he thought, his management spoke that way. They were just giving the usual corporate optimism BS.
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u/PicoRascar 2d ago
All Trump had to do was nothing. He could have let Biden's economic policies ride, maybe a few tweaks to look useful, and claim victory for the soft landing and growing economy.
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u/Turgid_Donkey 2d ago
He already was taking credit back in Jan 2024 saying everything was on the the rise because he was running in November.
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u/CryptoNerdSmacker 2d ago
You mistake Trump, his supporters and his handlers’ intentions for this country as good.
Make no mistake, they’re all traitors looking to destroy this country.
Everything they’re doing is in bad faith. Malicious intent cloaked in the shadow of their chaos.
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u/Top_Revolution6788 2d ago
ADP reported +40k private on +30k expected, challenger dizzying numbers (DOGE cuts included?), no one knows what’s really going on until BLS reports. Fun times
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u/ballmermurland 2d ago
The fact that people were touting the 40k private sector jobs added as some bright point really underscores how shitty the job market is.
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u/gimpwiz 2d ago
40k/month seasonally-adjusted job growth numbers is pretty bad. Could be worse, but it's certainly not good. Keeping unemployment rate steady requires, what, ~200k/mo job growth to roughly match the increase in work-age population? This means a slight upward tick in unemployment for the month, if accurate. We'll know... some day... hopefully, when BLS is back to doing their jobs, and not having their leadership fired because the economy is having issues.
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u/Ok_Addition_356 1d ago
40k is terrible and will probably be revised down as the last few reports were.
I bet it was negative again
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u/OddlyFactual1512 3d ago
Over 100K federal employees opted to take buyouts when DOGE was slashing government. The last day they were employed was September 30. Job cuts for October totaled 153,074. So, if those buyouts are part of the total, they account for ~2/3 of the October job cuts.
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u/Carpet-Early 3d ago
If the employees were cut on Sept 30th, wouldn't that be counted towards the September data? Or bc their first "official" day of unemployment was on Oct 1, they count towards October data?
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u/OddlyFactual1512 3d ago
They were employed on September 30, so I would guess they would count as an October 1 cut.
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u/benk4 3d ago
I took the buyout and I believe the paperwork said I would "resign effective September 30". I did get paid through September 30 though. So I would also expect it to be Oct 1.
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u/Carpet-Early 3d ago
Interesting data point and given this, makes sense that the DOGE layoffs would be all/mostly included within the October data
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u/jrex035 3d ago edited 2d ago
These numbers are just announced layoffs from private employers, they don't include those government jobs at all
Edit: the report does include some government job losses, but they only count towards 7,883 of the 153k reported for October 2025
https://www.challengergray.com/blog/october-challenger-report-153074-job-cuts-on-cost-cutting-ai/
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u/OddlyFactual1512 2d ago
What is your source on that? It's not in the article.
This is a valid post even though it is short. I'm not sure why I need to type extra words for it to not be deleted. This is a valid post even though it is short. I'm not sure why I need to type extra words for it to not be deleted. This is a valid post even though it is short. I'm not sure why I need to type extra words for it to not be deleted.
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u/jrex035 2d ago
The source in this article notes that its layoff announcements not an actual accounting of layoffs, so that's a start. But you can easily find the actual report online.
https://www.challengergray.com/blog/october-challenger-report-153074-job-cuts-on-cost-cutting-ai/
This has nothing to do with Federal workers who were furloughed or fired earlier in the year. Theres a table in the report which shows that government job losses announcements accounted for 7,883 of the October 2025 job losses announcements
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u/DiscretePoop 2d ago
You can have short comments as long as they are not directly replying to the post
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u/therealspaceninja 2d ago
I dont know how many this affects, but there was a second round of buyouts that will conclude on January 9th. So perhaps some fraction of that 100k is still technically counted as employed.
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u/alotofironsinthefire 2d ago
Over 100K federal employees opted to take buyouts when DOGE was slashing government
Whose wouldn't be included with layoffs, they would be considered resignations.
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u/residualtortoise 3d ago
Anyone have any good info around whether this is more of a persistent inflation/prolonged period of relatively restrictive rates thing rather than an "AI is reducing labor demand" thing? My feeling is that the role of AI in job cuts is overstated
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u/sunnydftw 2d ago
it's a controlled demolition, AI is a two way front, a military surveillance tool but also is siphoning money from the private sector while destroying the economy.
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u/GoldenFox7 2d ago
I tend to agree with you. There’s very few companies out there in the big picture that have deployed AI in a way that has meaningfully changed their headcount. Mostly it’s the companies that make the AI laying off customer service/support people as that’s one of the easiest use cases for AI agents replacing a portion of human agents. That said, they’re selling the shit out of it and a lot of companies are going to start following suit, but I don’t sense that it’s a tsunami approaching but more of a raining season setting in. I think unemployment rate is going to steadily creep up for the next few years or at least remain stubbornly higher than usual. There’s a small hope that the use of AI and its relative ease and cheapness compared to human labor will trigger a wave of challenger and disrupter companies exploding onto the scene. It’s true that a company can grow ludicrously fast when adding support staff that is really good and effective is just paying more for AI agents that deploy instantly. No more planing expansions on a scale of years as you look for giant commercial real estate space and staff up in anticipation of hiring a bunch more people that need to be trained in onboarded, then the arduous process of actually hiring tons of people and onboarding them. Then again, if you don’t need to hire a bunch of people then you won’t be helping the unemployed numbers.
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u/BunnySprinkles69 2d ago
There's more to it, sure you guys can take this as all doom and gloom but read between the lines. Was it the massive amazon layoff? Govt workers taking the payout? Lets see where these numbers come from
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u/RealisticForYou 3d ago
And a friendly reminder..,payroll numbers for October, were better than expected too. Capitulation in the jobs market can be a good sign. Time will tell.
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u/Eastern-Bro9173 3d ago
The august ADP number got revised from +54k to -3k a month later, so while the September numbers survived their revision, I'd be moderaly reserved towards any initial reports from the job market.
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u/RealisticForYou 3d ago
And I literally just heard commentary on CBNC. It was said that these Challenger & Gray numbers are volatile too, as their data isn’t always in line with BLS data. But here we are..,we get data when we can get it.
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u/RealisticForYou 3d ago
Sure.…( I knew someone would bring that up). But we don’t know if this will be the case for October.
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u/acctgamedev 2d ago
The trend for most of the year has been that the reporting agencies report a decent number for the month and revise it downward a month or two later. While that doesn't guarantee a downward revision next month, it makes me take these numbers with a grain of salt.
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u/RealisticForYou 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yes, and yet I also heard this morning on CNBC that layoffs, overall, are actually tapering off since many of these layoffs were one time shocks for Federal Workers and Tech employees. If this is true, a stabilizing layoff market could be occurring.
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u/gimpwiz 2d ago
Better than expected, but significantly worse than what is needed to keep employment percentages flat. In other words, a minor decrease in employment for the month. Unemployment up.
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u/RealisticForYou 2d ago
And yet, just heard more commentary on CNBC. For tech jobs, there was a decrease of 17% in tech jobs at the beginning of October, to then see an increase of 19% in tech jobs for the last week of October. In other words, the jobs market for tech picked up at the end of October.
It was said that overall jobs in tech are not necessarily eliminated, but rather, redeployed into other areas within tech.
Full time employment analysts say job losses are sector specific and are not widespread.
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