The Challenger report on layoff intentions in June shows a slowdown in planned job cuts after a busy start to the year. However, layoffs are now broad-based rather than deep cuts in a few sectors like government, technology, and retail. Businesses remain uncertain about the near future. They may be reluctant to lose skilled workers who could be difficult and expensive to replace. Many cuts will be eliminating open positions and previously planned hiring. Hiring intentions are weak with the majority in a few narrow industry groups. Overall, the labor market is rebalancing with more workers heading for unemployment and fewer employers ready to compete for them.

In June, layoff intentions are down 48.8 percent to 47,999 after 93,816 in May, and down 1.6 percent from 48,786 a year ago. The largest share of layoffs is in consumer products (9,500, or 19.8 percent of the total), followed by services (4,463, or 9.3 percent) and financial (4,164, or 8.7 percent). All but one sector reported layoff intentions in June.

Reasons cited for layoff intentions in June is dominated by market/economic conditions (22,869, or 47.6 percent of the total), followed by closing (12,703, or 26.5 percent). Some of this is restructuring in the retail sector, ongoing changes in technology, and the downstream effects of massive DOGE layoffs that cut off funding to government contracts and grants.

Hiring intentions are down 67.0 percent to 3,191 in June from 9,683 in May and off 83.3 percent from 19,087 a year ago. The largest share of hiring plans in June is industrial goods (1,374, or 43.1 percent of the total), construction (700, or 21.9 percent), and insurance (500, or 15.7 percent).

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.