Did We Really Lose A Million Jobs in 2025?
New report says we did, and the BLS says expect old data on Nov 20th
A new report claims the U.S. has lost 1.1 million jobs in 2025, a 44 percent jump from 2024 and the worst layoff pace since 2020.
From Amazon’s corporate cuts to tech and manufacturing slowdowns, October alone saw more than 153,000 jobs disappear. That was the highest monthly total for this time of year in two decades.
On paper, it sounds alarming. But is the labor market really unraveling? Let’s make sense of it.
The Economics and Data
The numbers come from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm that tracks announced layoffs, not official BLS data. That matters because the government Shutdown forced us to look to new sources of data, leaving private reports like this as the only source of fresh insight. More importantly, this report has more than paid off for the firm, as the media has been desperate for job-related data and has picked up this story.
Where the cuts are happening:
Government: 307,000 cuts (YTD), driven by “DOGE Actions” to reduce the federal workforce and related contracts.
Technology: 141,000 cuts (+17 % YoY) as firms integrate AI and restructure for efficiency.
Warehousing: 90,000 cuts (+378 % YoY) as automation and excess capacity unwind pandemic-era growth.
Retail: 89,000 cuts (+145 % YoY) amid cost pressures and weaker consumer demand.
Why it’s happening:
Cost-cutting led to October’s reductions (50,000 jobs).
Artificial Intelligence ranked second (31,000 jobs in October; 48,000 YTD).
Market and economic conditions, as well as plant closures, followed.
This combination of fiscal tightening, technological adoption, and changing consumption resembles what Challenger called “a disruptive-technology moment,” similar to the early mobile era shakeout of 2003.
For balance, employers also announced 488,000 planned hires through October, though that’s the lowest since 2011. ADP’s private-sector report still showed 42,000 net job adds in October, with wages up 4.5 percent year-over-year.
We Want Data!
We have missed our public data releases here at Decode Econ and are happy to welcome the news from the BLS that we should expect catch-up reports to be released soon. The Employment Situation (unemployment rate and jobs created) will be released on Thursday at 8:30 am. Concerns about data quality, due to the delay, have been raised. Nonetheless, there is great interest in what the data shows.
The Bottom Line
The headline number, “a million jobs lost”, overstates the damage, and the news has run with it. What’s really happening is a reallocation: firms trimming pandemic excess, automating where AI makes sense, and waiting for clearer signals before hiring again. What is missing from the headlines is the impact of DOGE on the economy.
For workers, it means longer searches and fiercer competition, especially in tech and white-collar roles where automation is accelerating.
Economies evolve by shifting labor to new uses. This phase often feels uncomfortable while we wait for the next wave of opportunity to materialize.
We won’t know what is happening in the labor market until we get more representative and detailed federal data. The picture will become clearer with BLS data release tomorrow.
Stay curious.
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I point out to my students that the standard "take" on new technologies -- that they lead to more jobs, not less -- is true, but NOT in the short run. In the short run new technologies tend to displace workers. It is only once more applications are discovered, and as companies become willing to and learn how to use the new tech, that additional jobs are added. If this is true of AI, as it has been for all previously introduced technologies back to 1750, then it will take a few years before students who were not able to find jobs as a result of AI doing the work previously done by new graduates will be able to find stable employment, and this may negatively impact their career earnings for a decade or more.
It would be great if you or someone you know could post about the current best ideas about what specific fields are more likely to expand, and those most likely to contract.
From Microsoft in July: https://fortune.com/2025/07/31/microsoft-research-generative-ai-occupational-impact-jobs-most-and-least-likely-to-impact-teaching-office-jobs-college-gen-z-grads/