The Challenger report shows a big jump of 135.8 percent in layoff intentions to 102,943 in January, up from 43,651 in December and 440.0 percent higher than the 19,064 in January 2022. The report noted the January total is the highest since 241,749 in January 2009 and the largest since 118,804 in September 2020.

Although the total is eye-catching, the details suggest that it is relatively few sectors making deep cuts. There is another big wave of layoffs for technology at 41,829 in January which accounts for 40.6 percent of the total. The next largest is retail at 13,000 which is 12.6 percent of the total. The third largest is financial at 10,603 and 10.3 percent of the total. Together the three sectors account for 63.6 percent of all announced job cuts. It is likely that technology and financial are reviewing their staffing after a burst of hiring necessitated by the conditions around the pandemic which have since been met and/or ebbed. Retail may be preparing for an economic downturn and weaker consumer spending, but it is also the ongoing trend of closing underperforming brick-and-mortar locations. Large scale layoffs in the broader economy do not appear to be occurring. Many companies are simply cutting open positions or restructuring operations.

However, there is a warning sign that slower economic activity is behind most of the layoffs. Among reasons cited in January, 86,526 are for a downturn in market/economic conditions, or 84.1 percent of the total. This is only one month's report, but it highlights the uncertainty of the outlook and concern about the US slipping into recession.

Hiring intentions which can see wild swings month-to-month are down 63.6 percent in January to 32,764 after 51,693 in December and are down 57.8 percent compared to 77,630 in January 2022. Nearly half of all hiring intentions in January are in entertainment/leisure at 15,859 or 48.4 percent of the total. This hints that expectations are for consumers to continue to travel, eat out, and go to entertainment venues in the coming months despite a pullback in other types of spending.

This monthly report counts and categorizes announcements of corporate layoffs based on mass layoff data from state departments of labor. The job-cut report must be analyzed with caution. It doesn't distinguish between layoffs scheduled for the short-term or the long term, or whether job cuts are handled through attrition or actual layoffs. Also, the job-cut report does not include jobs eliminated in small batches over a longer time period. Unlike most economic data, this series is not adjusted for seasonal variation.

The job-cut report is basically a rehash of the weekly jobless claims report but provides additional insight into where layoffs are occurring. There is industry and geographic (states) detail that is not available with weekly jobless claims.