Layoff intentions are climbing in August as businesses continue to cut payrolls through eliminating open positions and cutting current payrolls. The impact of DOGE downstream is starting to accelerate. Businesses are still navigating the shifting waters around tariffs. Economic conditions remain uncertain and businesses are responding by cutting costs. Hiring plans are minimal in August and leave in question as to whether retailers, wholesalers, and/or transportation companies are going to ramp up seasonal hiring this year in advance of the winter holidays.

The Challenger report on layoff intentions is up 38.5 percent to 85,979 in August after rising to 62,075 in July, and up 13.3 percent from 75,891 in August 2024. For the year-to-date, layoff intentions total 892,362, substantially higher than 536,421 for the first eight months of 2024.

Among reasons cited for layoffs, just over a third are 29,992 in restructuring and just under a third are in market/economic conditions at 28,214 in August. Businesses are responding to higher costs mostly from tariffs with eliminating and reorganizing current structures, and in many cases using AI to replace people.

In August, the largest numbers of layoff intentions are 19,112 in pharmaceutical (22.2 percent of the total), 18,092 in financial (21.0 percent), and 12,988 in technology (15.1 percent). The restructuring in the tech sector is ongoing. Technology is the second largest industry for job cuts in 2025 to-date at 102,239 compared to 295,273 in government.

Hiring intentions in August are a meager 1,494, down 53.3 percent from 3,200 in July and down 75.5 percent form 6,101 in August 2024. The August level is the lowest since the series began in 2009, Challenger said. Hiring plans are concentrated in three categories. The largest is 500 in aerospace, followed by 430 in industrial, and 250 in retail. Challenger Senior Vice President Andrew Challenger called this a troubling sign for September when retailers make their big announcements about hiring for the winter holiday shopping season.

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.