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US: Challenger Job-Cut Report
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| Level | 60,620 |
Highlights
Challenger job cut intentions are 83,387 in April up 37.6 percent from 60,620 in March and down 20.9 percent from 105,441 in April 2025. Planned job cuts in April are led by 33,361 in technology which accounted for 40.0 percent of total announced intentions. Among reasons cited for job cuts, by far the largest is 21,490 in artificial intelligence. Challenger CRO Any Challenger said, Regardless of whether individual jobs are being replaced by AI, the money for those roles is.
For the year-to-date, job cut intentions total 300,749, about half the total 602,492 in the first four months of 2025. Job cuts in 2025 had an outsized effect from massive layoff activity at the federal level of government. For January-April 2026, job cuts excluding government total 289,330 while the total is 320,266 in 2025. Job cuts are running at a similar underlying pace for comparable periods in 2025 and 2026.
Job cuts may be from elimination of unfilled or planned job openings, or layoffs from current payrolls. Job cuts may take place immediately or over a period of weeks or months. Should circumstances change, some cuts may never take place.
Challenger hiring intentions are 10,049 in April down 69.4 percent from 32,826 in March and up 2.5 percent from 16,191 in April 2025. The largest share of hiring intentions is 2,350 in government, followed by 1,980 in technology and 1,348 in food. Year-to-date hiring intentions are 60,936, slightly slower than 70,058 in the first four months of 2025.
Definition
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.
Description
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.
