The fourth quarter is traditionally a calm time for the employees, but 2025 has been different in many ways.

Employers used to refrain from cutting jobs during the holiday quarter, but October proved to be a bloodbath.

Through October, employers announced 1.1 million job cuts, a 65% year-over-year increase from the 665,000 cuts made through October last year.

Employers have already cut 44% more jobs through October than they did in all of 2024. According to Challenger, 2025 has been the worst year for job cuts since employers cut 2.3 million in 2020.

Challenger, Gray, & Christmas: Reasons for October U.S. job cuts

  • Correcting headcount after overhiring during Covid pandemic
  • Softening consumer and corporate spending
  • Rising costs due to belt-tightening and hiring freezes
  • AI adoption

Not only did individual companies announce large layoff totals, but a larger number of companies also cut jobs. Nearly 450 companies reported job cut plans in October, compared to 400 in September.

The layoff issue is multifaceted, and now a new study from job review service Glassdoor predicts a new normal that could place employees in an extremely stressful situation.

Employee anxiety is expected to increase as the era of the ‘forever layoff’ sets in.

Photo by Resume Genius on Unsplash

2026 will be the year the ‘forever layoff’ sets in

Amazon, UPS, and Target, three of the largest employers in the country, have already announced plans to lay off tens of thousands of workers in the coming weeks.

This week, it was also revealed that telecom giant Verizon is laying off 15% of its 100,000-strong workforce.

Related: White-collar workers should worry about this concerning trend

Major layoffs announced in the past month

  • Target revealed plans in late October to eliminate 1,800 corporate jobs, marking its second-largest corporate downsizing ever.
  • Amazon announced another round of layoffs just before the holidays. The cuts affected 14,000 corporate employees across multiple departments, aiming to reduce bureaucracy by “removing layers and shifting resources” to better serve its investments and customers. 
  • UPS in a press release shared that it has cut about 48,000 jobs so far this year, including 34,000 positions through its Network Reconfiguration and Efficiency Reimagined program.

However, while the big corporations grab the headlines, small layoffs have become the most common type, and Glassdoor says that the trend is expected to “stoke worker anxiety as it continues in 2026.”

Layoffs of fewer than 50 individuals accounted for just 38% of layoffs in 2015. By this year, the rate increased to 51%.

“Employers have started engaging in smaller but regular layoffs instead of infrequent but large cuts. We call these ongoing layoffs the ‘forever layoff’ as job cuts come in never-ending waves instead of a tsunami,” Glassdoor said.

Layoffs are back up to prepandemic levels

Employees had more power than ever before during the pandemic.

Tech companies were hiring hundreds of thousands of people, and wages were rising as companies looked to dig themselves out of the hole Covid placed them in.

But now companies across the spectrum are downsizing, leading to increased anxiety for workers.

Related: Layoffs commence at two major tech giants

“After a layoff spike in 2020 during the pandemic and historically low layoff levels in 2021-2022, the number of workers laid off each month has crept back up, stabilizing at a level similar to what we saw in the 2010s. The backdrop has worsened for the laid off workers, who need to search in a low-hire market,” Glassdoor said.

Glassdoor says employers see the “forever layoff” as a way to lower costs without drawing headlines for massive layoffs. But the tradeoff is that the persistent threat of layoffs is “likely to damage worker morale and workplace culture.”

Challenger, Gray, & Christmas report shows massive job losses in October

Data from the October jobs report from Challenger, Gray, & Christmas are worrying.

U.S. employers announced 153,074 job cuts in the month, nearly triple the 55,597 cuts that were announced during this month last year. Perhaps even more concerning, lost jobs are also up 183% from September.

“Those laid off now are finding it harder to quickly secure new roles, which could further loosen the labor market,” said Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray, & Christmas.

U.S. employers have announced 488,077 planned hires through October, a 35% decline from the more than 750,000 that were announced this time last year.

According to Challenger, this has been the weakest job creation market since 2011, when 460,000 new hires were planned. On average, employers have announced nearly 49,000 new hires per month, again marking the lowest level since 2011, when 44,798 were announced monthly.

Public-sector layoffs account for the largest share, thanks to the Trump administration’s soft war on the government workforce. By last June, the federal government had laid off just 37,000 workers. Through June 2025, that number approached 300,000.

But tech layoffs have been the second most prominent form of downsizing this year.

As of October 23, 2025, there have been 575 layoffs at tech companies, affecting nearly 160,000 people. That translates to 540 tech-sector employees being let go every day.

Related: Shocking jobs data resets recession bets