The Challenger job cut intentions report for December sees a month-over-month decrease of 50.2 percent to 35,553 from 71,321 in November and is down 8.3 percent compared to 38,792 in December 2024. For all of 2025, job cut announcements totaled 1,206,374, up significantly from 761,358 in 2024 and the highest since 2,304,755 in 2020.

In December, the number of announced job cuts was widespread across industries. The largest cut was 5,707 in services, or 16.1 percent of the total. For the whole year, job cuts were led by 308,167 in government and 155,445 in technology. Between the DOGE slashing of federal government jobs and the rapid adoption of AI tools, the two sectors accounted for nearly 40 percent of all planned cuts.

Among reasons cited for job cuts, the largest is 12,949 in closing, or 36.4 percent of the total. The second largest is 8,120 from market/economic conditions, or 22.8 percent of the total.

Hiring intentions rise 15.7 percent to 10,496 in December from 9,074 in November and are up 31.2 percent from 7,999 in December 2024. The largest number of hiring plans is 2,798 in aerospace/defense, or 26.7 percent of the total. The second largest is 1,528 in automotive, or 14.6 percent of the total.

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.