Remember when getting a stable job felt like winning the career lottery? Yeah, those days feel pretty distant right now.
I opened my feed this morning and saw yet another round of headlines about job cuts, and honestly, it hit different this time. We just crossed a grim milestone: American companies have announced more than 1.17 million layoffs in 2025. That’s not just a big number – it’s the highest yearly total since the pandemic turned the world upside down in 2020.
And the craziest part? We still have one month left to go.
A Year That Feels Like a Slow-Motion Car Crash
Let’s put this in perspective. The pace of announced cuts this year is running 54% higher than the same period in 2024. Fifty-four percent. That’s not a blip – that’s a trend screaming for attention.
November alone saw 71,321 planned job losses. Sure, that’s actually a step down from the bloodbath we saw in October (153,000+ cuts – the worst October in 22 years), but it still pushed us comfortably over that 1.1 million mark everyone was nervously watching.
I’ve been following labor market data for years, and I can’t remember the last time the mood shifted this fast from “soft landing” optimism to “wait, are we okay?” pessimism.
The Usual Suspects – And Some New Ones
So who’s swinging the axe?
Everyone, apparently.
One telecom giant alone announced over 13,000 cuts in November. Tech companies – powered (or threatened) by the AI boom – disclosed another 12,377 reductions that month. The retail sector continues to bleed. Manufacturers are citing tariffs. Even sectors that felt bulletproof six months ago are quietly trimming headcount.
“Layoff plans fell last month, certainly a positive sign. That said, job cuts in November have risen above 70,000 only twice since 2008: in 2022 and in 2008.”
– Senior VP at a global outplacement firm
That quote stopped me cold. We’re keeping company with the Great Financial Crisis now. Lovely.
AI Isn’t Coming For Jobs – It’s Already Here
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: artificial intelligence.
Companies have explicitly blamed AI for 54,694 layoffs so far this year. That’s not a rounding error. That’s entire towns worth of people suddenly finding themselves on the outside looking in.
And here’s what keeps me up at night: those are only the cases where companies actually admitted AI was the reason. How many more “restructuring” or “cost-saving initiative” announcements were really mean “we just trained a model to do your job for $12 a month”?
I’ve spoken to software engineers, copywriters, customer support leads, even legal researchers who’ve been replaced by tools that didn’t exist two years ago. The speed of this shift is breathtaking – and terrifying.
Tariffs Are The New “Economic Conditions”
Another phrase popping up more frequently in layoff announcements: tariffs.
Over 2,000 cuts in November alone cited trade policy concerns, bringing the year-to-date total to nearly 8,000. Manufacturers, especially those with exposure to China or Mexico, are making preemptive moves ahead of potential policy changes.
Whether you love or hate the tariff conversation, the reality is companies are already adjusting their workforces around it. Uncertainty is expensive – and employees are paying the price.
The Restructuring That Never Ends
The number one official reason for cuts this year? Restructuring.
Followed by plant/store closings, then “market conditions.” It’s the corporate equivalent of breaking up with someone by saying “it’s not you, it’s me.” We all know what it really means.
What’s changed since the Great Recession is timing. Companies used to drop end-of-year bombs to clean up the books before January 1. Now? They’ve learned that laying people off right before the holidays is terrible optics. So instead, we get this slow drip of pain spread across all year.
Somehow that feels worse.
Meanwhile, Hiring Has Collapsed
It’s not just that companies are cutting jobs – they’ve dramatically pulled back on adding them too.
Announced hiring plans for 2025 currently sit at just 497,151 – down a brutal 35% from the same point last year. That means for every role being eliminated, far fewer are being created to replace them.
The net result? A labor market that feels frozen even while the unemployment rate hasn’t exploded yet. Companies are hoarding cash, delaying decisions, and waiting to see which way the wind blows.
What This Actually Feels Like on the Ground
I want to go beyond the numbers for a minute.
Talk to anyone in tech right now and you’ll hear the same stories: the lucky ones who still have jobs are working longer hours to cover departed colleagues, while quietly updating their résumés at night. Morale is in the toilet. “Quiet quitting” has been replaced by “quiet terror.”
Mid-career professionals who thought they’d locked in security are suddenly competing with hundreds of applicants for every opening. New grads? Forget about it – many companies have canceled internship programs entirely.
And the mental health toll… look, I’m not a therapist, but when your livelihood feels like it could disappear with one Slack message, that does something to a person.
Is This a Recession in Disguise?
Here’s where opinions diverge.
Some economists point to still-solid consumer spending and say we’re just seeing a healthy rebalancing after the pandemic hiring frenzy. Others look at the private payroll cuts, collapsing hiring intentions, and skyrocketing layoff announcements and whisper: “This is how it starts.”
Personally? I’m in the second camp. When companies are this aggressive about cutting costs this early in a potential slowdown, it often becomes self-fulfilling.
Less spending by newly unemployed workers → lower revenue for businesses → more cuts needed → repeat. We’ve seen this movie before.
What Comes Next?
The million-dollar question (or in this case, the 1.17-million-job question).
Some thoughts:
- AI adoption isn’t slowing down. If anything, economic pressure will accelerate it as companies chase productivity gains.
- Policy uncertainty around trade, taxes, and regulation will keep CFOs in “preserve cash” mode through at least mid-2026.
- Skills in AI implementation, prompt engineering, and data annotation may become the few bright spots in an otherwise dark hiring landscape.
- Remote work, already shrinking, could take another hit as nervous managers want “butts in seats” they can monitor.
None of this is written in stone, of course. A surprise policy shift or sudden surge in demand could change everything. But right now? The momentum is pointing in one direction.
If You Still Have a Job: Some Hard Truths
Look, I hate giving this advice, but here we are:
- Keep your résumé current. Like, today.
- Build your network while you don’t desperately need it.
- Document your achievements quarterly – you might need them faster than you think.
- Have 6+ months of expenses saved if you can. (I know, easier said than done.)
- Learn something AI-adjacent. Even basic proficiency could make you the last one cut in your department.
Harsh? Yes. Necessary? Also yes.
2025 has reminded us, painfully, that no job is truly “safe” anymore. The social contract between companies and employees has been rewritten, and most of us haven’t even had time to read the new terms.
Stay sharp out there.
