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🌅 October Layoffs Reached a 20-Year High

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Sunrise Stat
November 10, 2025

1.1 million - The number of people laid off by U.S. employers so far in 2025.

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WHAT TO KNOW

  • U.S. employers have announced 1.1 million layoffs so far in 2025, while hiring has slowed to its lowest point in 14 years. The cuts amount to the largest January-October total since 2020, and are on par with the losses seen in 2008 and 2009 during the Great Recession. Employers cited cost-cutting as the top reason for the layoffs.

WHY IT MATTERS

  • Job cuts in October are up 175% from this time in 2024 and 183% from the month prior. October’s losses are the highest for the month since 2003 and the highest total for a single month in the fourth quarter since 2008 (employers typically refrain from announcing job cuts in the fourth quarter as the holidays approach).

CONNECT THE DOTS

  • The layoffs are the latest indicator that the U.S. is headed for a recession (other data shows stocks are more expensive than at any period since the turn of the millennium). Unfortunately, the cuts are projected to get worse: in July, the Economic Policy Institute predicted the Trump administration’s deportation agenda will cost the U.S. nearly 6 million jobs, including 2.6 million held by U.S.-born workers.