A sign at the New York State Department of Labor job fair held at the Downtown Central Library on Wednesday, August 27, 2025 in Buffalo, New York, USA.
Lauren Petracca Bloomberg | Getty Images
U.S. employers announced more than 1 million annual layoffs in November, as corporate restructuring, artificial intelligence and tariffs drive layoffs, consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported Thursday.
The company said its planned layoffs in November totaled 71,321 people, a step down from the large-scale layoffs announced in October, but still enough to bring total layoffs to 1.17 million in 2025. This total is up 54% from the same 11-month period last year and is the highest level since 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic rocked the global economy.
In November, Verizon announced more than 13,000 job cuts, boosting overall employment. High-tech companies, driven by innovations in artificial intelligence, cited 12,377 reductions, increasing the sector’s total in 2025 by 17% from the previous year. AI itself has been cited as the cause of 54,694 layoffs this year.
Tariffs have been cited as the driving force behind more than 2,000 cuts in November and nearly 8,000 since the beginning of the year. Restructuring was the most cited reason for the month, followed by store closures and market and economic conditions.
“Layoff plans decreased last month, which is certainly a positive sign. That said, layoffs increased in November.”
It has exceeded 70,000 only twice since 2008, in 2022 and 2008,” said Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer at Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Challenger also noted that since the 2008 financial crisis, companies have moved away from announcing year-end layoffs.
“The trend has been for most companies to announce layoff plans towards the end of the year.”
End of the year. “It became unpopular, especially after the Great Recession, and best practices dictate that layoff programs occur outside of the holidays,” Challenger said.
November provided some relief from the more than 153,000 job cuts announced in October, which was the highest for the month in 22 years.
The numbers come with growing concerns about the state of the U.S. labor market.
ADP reported Wednesday that private employers cut 32,000 jobs in November, the largest decline in more than two-and-a-half years.
The outlook for jobs this year remains bleak, according to a report by Challenger. Employers announced plans to hire 497,151 people, a 35% decrease from the same point in 2024.
Despite signs of weakness in other regions, Labor Department data still does not reflect the surge in layoffs.
The department reported Thursday that weekly jobless claims unexpectedly fell to 191,000, the lowest in more than three years. The drop of about 27,000 from the previous week was due to unusually large declines in California and Texas, likely affected by the Thanksgiving holiday, according to official data.
