A report from
employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. revealed on Thursday that
the U.S. businesses announced 105,441 job cuts in April, down 61.7 per cent
from the 275,240 layoffs claimed in March. This marked the weakest rise in job cuts in three months. The April reading was 62.7 per cent above the figure for
the corresponding month one year prior (64,789).
According to
the report, the Technology announced the largest number of job cuts last
month (27,021, or 25.6 per cent of all). It was followed by the Warehousing (22,050, or 20.9 per cent of all), Telecommunications (9,295, or 8.8 per
cent of all), Health Care and Products (7,654, or 7.3 per cent of all), and Retail
(7,235, or 6.9 per cent of all) sectors.
Year-to-date, U.S. employers
announced plans to cut 602,493 jobs, up 87.1 per cent from the 322,043 cuts
announced during the corresponding period a year ago. This
represented the highest year-to-date total since 2020, when 1,017,812 job cuts
were planned.
From January
through April, the Government led all industries in job cut announcements with 282,227 (or 46.8 per cent of all announced job cuts), 281,452 of which are attributed to
DOGE-related cost-cutting. It was followed by Retail (64,319, or 10.7 per cent
of all cuts), Technology (64,118, or 10.6 per cent), and Warehousing (30,057,
or 5.0 per cent).
Commenting on
the latest report, Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray
& Christmas Inc., noted though the Government cuts are front and centre, job
cuts were also seen across sectors last month. “Generally, companies are citing
the economy and new technology,” he added. “Employers are slow to hire and
limiting hiring plans as they wait and see what will happen with trade, supply
chain, and consumer spending.”