The holidays have been fairly stress-free for workers the past several years. Employers, realizing just how bad a look it is to announce substantial layoffs during the end of the fourth quarter, have held off on the move until early the following year. But as 2025 draws to a close, a growing number of workers are getting pink slips in their stockings.
While the full employment picture for October, November, and December is still far from clear, thanks to the government shutdown and delays in jobs reports from the Labor Department, other studies that have been issued have shown an increasingly tenuous market.
A report last week from Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that 71,321 people lost their jobs in November, with Verizon $VZ leading the way with plans to cut 13,000 jobs. That was the biggest total in three years – and only the third time November cuts have topped 70,000.
Hiring, at the same time, lagged hitting its lowest point in 15 years.
“It was the trend to announce layoff plans toward the end of the year, to align with most companies’ fiscal year-ends. It became unpopular after the Great Recession especially, and best practice dictated layoff plans would occur at times other than the holidays,” said Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Wells Fargo $WFC's CEO, meanwhile, has said he expects more job cuts at the bank by the end of the quarter.
“As we’ve gone through the budgeting process, and even pre AI, we do expect to have less people as we go into next year,” CEO and president Charlie Scharf said at the Goldman Sachs $GS Financial Services Conference in New York City. “We’ll likely have more severance in the fourth quarter."
Things likely won't get much better in the New Year. Amazon $AMZN, which cut 14,000 jobs in October, said it expects “there will be additional places where we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realize efficiency gains” in 2026.
AI is behind a lot of the expected cuts, both for efficiency reasons and as companies pour more and more money into the technology and investors begin demanding results.