Private hiring remains sluggish, with only 22,000 jobs added in January
According to the payroll firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, US employers cut 108,435 jobs in January, marking the highest of any January since the 2009 global financial crisis.
The job cuts are a staggering 118% increase from the same time last year and 205% from December 2025.
The redundancy surge was mainly driven by massive workforce reductions in the transportation and technology sectors, led by UPS and Amazon. The tech sector had 22,291 cuts, with 16,000 of them coming from the Jeff Bezos company. UPS decided to cut more than 30,000 workers.
AI was the reason for 7,624 reductions, according to the Challenger report.
December job openings also plummeted to their lowest levels in five years, while unemployment remains historically low at 4.4%.
Private hiring remains sluggish, with only 22,000 jobs added in January, according to ADP. The number of people applying for unemployment insurance jumped last month, and experts say it could push the Federal Reserve to cut rates in March.
Analysts say the layoffs signal a pivot from the no-hire, no-fire labor market trend that has prevailed.