The jobs market is off to a rocky start this year, new data show

New data on jobs and layoffs this week points to more job cuts and lackluster hiring plans, indicating 2026 might not be the fresh start many job seekers are looking for.

A monthly survey of layoff announcements from the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas released Thursday found that U.S. employers announced 108,435 job cuts in January, the highest cuts for the first month of the year since 2009.

Last January, employers announced cuts just shy of 50,000 jobs, according to Challenger. In January of 2009, more than 240,000 jobs cuts were announced.

The firm also reported that employers announced the lowest total of hiring plans for the month of January since 2009, the year the firm started tracking the metric.

Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer for the firm, wrote that the high cut count signals “employers are less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026.”

However, JPMorgan noted that comparing the cuts to 2009 could be misleading.

“While the report noted that 108k job cuts were the highest for January since 2009, this could be misleading on the severity,” JPMorgan said in a Thursday note. “This January was much more similar to recent January values than it was to 2009.”

The bulk of announced cuts came from the transportation and technology sectors, followed by the healthcare sector, the firm reported, citing job cut announcements from UPS and Amazon. Last week, Amazon announced it would be cutting 16,000 jobs and UPS said it planned to slash up to 30,000 roles.

The primary reasons for the January cuts reported by Challenger were cited as lost contracts, market and economic conditions, and restructuring. Only 7% of total January cuts were attributed to AI replacing workers, the firm said.

Economist Mohamed A. El-Erian called the data “sobering” in a post on X.

“Most notably, these layoffs are occurring while GDP continues to grow at approximately 4%, accelerating the decoupling of employment from economic growth—a phenomenon that, if it persists, has profound economic, political, and social implications,” he added.

The release of the most closely watched jobs report for January, by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, was postponed due to the brief government shutdown. The January job report will now be released on Feb. 11.

Another jobs report from ADP Research released Wednesday estimated that the private sector added just 22,000 jobs in January, driven primarily by an additional 74,000 roles in education and health services.

ADP said the slowdown came from cuts in manufacturing, professional and business services and among large employers.

The Department of Labor reported Thursday an increase of 22,000 initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ending Jan. 31, over the previous week.

Evercore ISI said in a Thursday note that the unemployment claims should “put some downside pressure on Treasury yields and the dollar.” It estimated that payroll employment increased by around 75,000 jobs last month.

However, BLS did release data on job openings and labor turnover for December on Thursday. The bureau reported that non-farm job openings “continued to trend down” for the month with a decrease of 386,000 openings. The largest dips came from professional and business services, followed by retail trade and finance and insurance.

BLS said openings were down by nearly a million roles over the year.

“The job market has continued to reflect a low-hire, low-fire dynamic,” Mark Hamrick, Bankrate senior economic analyst, said in an emailed statement. “The key question now is whether we’re slipping into a weaker environment.”

As BLS prepares to release its official employment report for last month, more layoffs have already begun. On Wednesday, The Washington Post cut a third of its staff.