"WHICH INDUSTRIES ARE CUTTING THE MOST IN OCTOBER?
Technology continues to lead in private-sector job cuts as companies restructure amid AI integration, slower demand, and efficiency pressures. In October, the sector announced 33,281 job cuts, up sharply from 5,639 in September. For the year, Technology firms have announced 141,159 job cuts, up 17% from the 120,470 announced through the same period in 2024."
The question for me is, assuming that other companies are more humane and are avoiding laying people off before Christmas, what does January look like?
Companies, especially large ones, generally don't think like that. Q1 can be an active quarter for layoffs (Q1 2023 was probably the most active layoff quarter since COVID), but generally, they happen when they happen (Q2-2025 was more active than Q1-2025).
One very real factor that actually does act as a gravitational pull for doing layoffs in Oct/Nov Q4 is insurance elections. Waiting until January can create a lot of complicated paperwork and cost more. There is also very much a sense that doing layoffs before the holidays, while giving severance pay, is more humane than waiting, because they can "spend time with family" (real words I've heard stated).
I can see the logic. Layoffs are always terrible. But if I am getting laid off anyway, I would prefer to know about it before I spend a whole bunch of money during holidays.
It used to be true, but companies seem deadset on demoralizing their workforce as much as possible.
They've raised prices as much as consumers will bear.
We're getting near the physical limits of how efficient things can get in many sectors.
If P/Es are to remain this high (and they have to for the rich to remain this rich), the profits must continue to grow far in excess of the total economy.
Just the last 4-6 weeks I've started noticing a marked uptick in desperation in reposted linkedin "looking for work" posts. One was "I'll take ANY job to feed my kids" and another was talking about how they've been out of work 10 months and were about to lose their house. Another was saying they were about to get evicted and moving back in with their parents in the midwest. Things feel ominous out there.
If it helps anyone who is looking- when I was laid off 4 years ago, I took a seasonal Oct-Jan delivery job with UPS just to get out of the house, get some income and keep busy. They call them PWDs and it's $46 an hour, you use your own car and do package delivery. Your car and clothes get DISGUSTING - turns out packages are completely filthy- definitely put a tarp down - and you will be dog tired at the end of the day, I was doing 200-285 packages per shift- but it was good income and kept me busy. Also they offered to convert me to full-time warehouse after the holiday season but by then I had placed back into an industry job.
I think the pay is location dependent, but note there was a LOT of opportunity for overtime- I basically could work as much as I wanted. They would ask us to stay late to do extra deliveries almost every day and come in weekends also for time and a half or double time. I think it might vary on the volume of your hub. The reddit "UPSers" subreddit was also a good resource, if you search PVD or SSD on there:
It makes sense to get any job if finances force you to, but... if you're not strapped for cash, would that really be the best way to spend that time? I have absolutely nothing against hard work, and if you want to keep yourself busy, go ahead. But I feel it's an ineffective way to spend forced downtime.
Honestly, if I were hit by lack of work, I would see how much runway savings I have and then try to either take some time off, to spend with family, do some low-budget traveling, learn new professional skills I wanted to learn, try to change the niche I work in and/or contribute to some open source project.
For me personally I was pretty depressed about being laid off and instead of using the time wisely (gym/cooking/museums/travel) I was moping around, so having something that forced me to get out of the house and busy was really beneficial.
Also, doing the deliveries kind of sucked so much (lol) that it was highly motivational to network with recruiters which is how I got back in industry.
There's definitely more optimal uses of time for a layoff but I wasn't utilizing them hence this was perfect for me at the time!
And, although the Bay Area is a bit of an outlier because geography, there are plenty of coastal cities where you can get to, not inexpensive by the standards of some regions, but not "insane" unless you absolutely feel you need to live in the central city areas.
One thing that strikes me as odd, as someone not from the US, is that it’s kind of assumed that people are renting? I’d expect that lots of people in SV/Bay area would just buy the place, expensive as that might be.
There are a ton of costs even if you own and have paid off. Aside from my $5K/year property taxes, I've spent probably $50K (likely more) in the past year for costs related to a fire. Also some significant costs for deferred maintenance that had to happen. Some routine plowing and lawn/field maintenance that I could do myself but that would take capital costs (and time). So not a typical couple of years but I've spent well over $100K on my house even though it's paid-off. It's far from free once you've written that last check to a bank.
Of course, modern condos will likely be cheaper but now you're paying HOA fees each month.
That's true too. A lot of people made a lot of money and they can now afford expensive real estate even if they're not making big bucks today absent lifestyle expansion and rational investments.
I'd add that I know a fair number of people who are not necessarily in coastal cities but are adjacent to them that have been exiting. They're mostly somewhat older and pretty comfortable or just have other things going on in their lives. The reality for some is that this isn't a terrible time to exit if you're not really loving things any longer and maybe have some other stuff you'd like to work on--or just retire.
This is what one-on-one relationships with our employers gets us
(where one-on-one means one worker's relationship to a chain of command, a department for compensation & benefits, ownership, board, and a network of investors & advisors coordinating on compensation, hiring practices, regulatory politics at a national level)
Unions helped Detroit autoworkers so much. I'm not totally opposed to unions but if people don't want to buy the company's product at the price it's offered for (and costs), they can't sustainably force the company to pay workers more.
“ It is not good management to take profits out of the workers or the buyers; make management produce the profits. Don’t cheapen the product. Don’t cheapen the wage. don’t overcharge the public. Well-managed business pays high wages and sells at low prices. Its workmen have the leisure to enjoy life and the wherewithal with which to finance that enjoyment.”
You mean the Henry Ford who brought in often violent internal company police to prevent unionization? I imagine there are many modern examples if not to the same degree.
> This is what one-on-one relationships with our employers gets us
Its what an economic slowdown outside of AI gets us, mostly, but yes, unbridled capitalism (with, among other things, neither unionization in the industry under consideration nor strong public protection of labor rights) magnifies that (it also, to be fair, magnifies the upswing in employment on the upward side of the business cycle, but, it also magnifies the adverse consequences of unemployment on either side.)
I think we are at the point where tech companies have tested layoffs from unimaginable to on a regular basis and are willing to lay off more employees for the pursuit of this fantasy called "AGI" which actually means a 10% increase in mass global unemployment.
It doesn't matter if you are in tech, what matters is that your (tech) job is no longer safe.
which has more info and did the original work. suggest swapping link for this post. would also pay some money to never see this awful site again on HN. by the time you scroll to paragraph 3 the screen is 50% filled with shoe ads and other random shit
If something is worth flagging, context isn't needed. If something has problems that can be adequately addressed by adding context, that's what comments, an not flagging, are for. "Flagging with context" is not understanding the purpose of flagging.
Says who? Your tone vs. your actual authority on the subject are wildly incongruous.
There are many modes and methods for interacting. I, personally, am not fond of the dragonwriter method. I'm sure it has its place, but it's just not for me.
This is the most awkward crisis no one admits there is, intertwined with two wars, one genocide, and oligarchs uniformly taking over the power across the entire developed world.
That's because its a shit title editorialization: The article is actually saying that there hasn't been an October in two decades with this many layoffs, not that this October had more layoffs than any other month in two decades.
Sorry, can’t have that. But you can pick men vs women, left vs right, white vs poc, Israel vs Palestine, capitalism vs socialism, religion vs atheism, cis vs trans.
I’m not from the us, so can someone give me some real perspective? If you have a couple years experience and you want to make at least ~50k a year, is it actually really hard to find a job in tech right now?
Or is this more about senior people not being able to find ~100k a year jobs as easily?
$50k jobs (in your field) are probably harder to find than $100k jobs. Nobody wants to hire a $50k dev in the US - they'd think there's something wrong with you. In the past you could maybe get something in web dev but that's not exactly a thriving industry these days.
In any case, my impression is that juniors are being hit the hardest. They're the easiest to offshore and the easiest to justify as being replaceable by AI (regardless of how true that actually is).
Without delving into all the stats, $50K/year is a pretty mediocre salary--certainly in anything resembling a medium to high cost of living area. Your rent will consume a lot of that after taxes without roommates and even a "paid-off" house will probably not be a whole lot less with taxes, insurance, utilities, etc.
Certainly a trailer home in a lot of places but then not clear how easily you'll get that $50K/yr job.
Junior jobs are very hard to find right now. They are much rarer than they used to be. However, if you are even somewhat capable you could probably find a role if you're willing to accept $50k total comp (which is very low in most areas) just by being willing to work for less than others.
Certainly, anecdotally, that seems to be the case. There are exceptions like interns who have some in. But whether it's AI or some combination of other reasons, it does seem to be more difficult for juniors than at least mid-career professionals.
The current tech job situation in the US is hitting junior developers a lot harder than senior developers, which is why there's a general assumption a lot of it is being driven by the combination of AI and outsourcing.
Whether this is sustainable remains to be seen, there was a big outsourcing trend back in ~2004 in the tech industry here that ended up being somewhat short-lived as many companies realized those efforts were costing them more than they were saving them beyond the short term. Whether or not this time is different with the added AI component, I have no idea. I wouldn't bet on it in either direction.
Its not great out there for senior developers either, but on the senior side its more of a freeze (try not to lose your job because the next one may be very hard to find) whereas on the junior side its more of a clear contraction (keeping your job will be much harder, finding a new one harder still).
"WHICH INDUSTRIES ARE CUTTING THE MOST IN OCTOBER?
Technology continues to lead in private-sector job cuts as companies restructure amid AI integration, slower demand, and efficiency pressures. In October, the sector announced 33,281 job cuts, up sharply from 5,639 in September. For the year, Technology firms have announced 141,159 job cuts, up 17% from the 120,470 announced through the same period in 2024."
https://www.challengergray.com/blog/october-challenger-repor...
The question for me is, assuming that other companies are more humane and are avoiding laying people off before Christmas, what does January look like?
Companies, especially large ones, generally don't think like that. Q1 can be an active quarter for layoffs (Q1 2023 was probably the most active layoff quarter since COVID), but generally, they happen when they happen (Q2-2025 was more active than Q1-2025).
One very real factor that actually does act as a gravitational pull for doing layoffs in Oct/Nov Q4 is insurance elections. Waiting until January can create a lot of complicated paperwork and cost more. There is also very much a sense that doing layoffs before the holidays, while giving severance pay, is more humane than waiting, because they can "spend time with family" (real words I've heard stated).
I can see the logic. Layoffs are always terrible. But if I am getting laid off anyway, I would prefer to know about it before I spend a whole bunch of money during holidays.
That's a bold assumption.
It used to be true, but companies seem deadset on demoralizing their workforce as much as possible.
They've raised prices as much as consumers will bear.
We're getting near the physical limits of how efficient things can get in many sectors.
If P/Es are to remain this high (and they have to for the rich to remain this rich), the profits must continue to grow far in excess of the total economy.
The only orange left to squeeze is labor costs.
[dead]
Just the last 4-6 weeks I've started noticing a marked uptick in desperation in reposted linkedin "looking for work" posts. One was "I'll take ANY job to feed my kids" and another was talking about how they've been out of work 10 months and were about to lose their house. Another was saying they were about to get evicted and moving back in with their parents in the midwest. Things feel ominous out there.
If it helps anyone who is looking- when I was laid off 4 years ago, I took a seasonal Oct-Jan delivery job with UPS just to get out of the house, get some income and keep busy. They call them PWDs and it's $46 an hour, you use your own car and do package delivery. Your car and clothes get DISGUSTING - turns out packages are completely filthy- definitely put a tarp down - and you will be dog tired at the end of the day, I was doing 200-285 packages per shift- but it was good income and kept me busy. Also they offered to convert me to full-time warehouse after the holiday season but by then I had placed back into an industry job.
I think they call them SSDs now but same thing: https://www.jobs-ups.com/us/en/seasonal-support-driver
I’m terrified of what would happen if I lost my tech job. It’s not the income but more the cost of insurance for a family of four.
Interesting suggestion - thanks for sharing.
Is the pay location dependent or has it just gone way down? That link shows three near me, but only paying a rather paltry $23/hr.
That's not much more than something like Walmart, which is likely a much less strenuous job with way less wear and tear on your vehicle(and body).
I think the pay is location dependent, but note there was a LOT of opportunity for overtime- I basically could work as much as I wanted. They would ask us to stay late to do extra deliveries almost every day and come in weekends also for time and a half or double time. I think it might vary on the volume of your hub. The reddit "UPSers" subreddit was also a good resource, if you search PVD or SSD on there:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UPS/comments/z0bpne/advice_for_a_ne...
https://www.reddit.com/r/UPS/comments/zu6x8n/first_year_pvd_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/UPSers/comments/1gdypb6/working_as_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/UPSers/comments/18jxcd5/ssd_center_...
It makes sense to get any job if finances force you to, but... if you're not strapped for cash, would that really be the best way to spend that time? I have absolutely nothing against hard work, and if you want to keep yourself busy, go ahead. But I feel it's an ineffective way to spend forced downtime.
Honestly, if I were hit by lack of work, I would see how much runway savings I have and then try to either take some time off, to spend with family, do some low-budget traveling, learn new professional skills I wanted to learn, try to change the niche I work in and/or contribute to some open source project.
For me personally I was pretty depressed about being laid off and instead of using the time wisely (gym/cooking/museums/travel) I was moping around, so having something that forced me to get out of the house and busy was really beneficial.
Also, doing the deliveries kind of sucked so much (lol) that it was highly motivational to network with recruiters which is how I got back in industry.
There's definitely more optimal uses of time for a layoff but I wasn't utilizing them hence this was perfect for me at the time!
If tech folks are laid off who is renting that insanely expensive housing in the coastal cities?
Probably the 90%+ who still have jobs.
And, although the Bay Area is a bit of an outlier because geography, there are plenty of coastal cities where you can get to, not inexpensive by the standards of some regions, but not "insane" unless you absolutely feel you need to live in the central city areas.
One thing that strikes me as odd, as someone not from the US, is that it’s kind of assumed that people are renting? I’d expect that lots of people in SV/Bay area would just buy the place, expensive as that might be.
There are a ton of costs even if you own and have paid off. Aside from my $5K/year property taxes, I've spent probably $50K (likely more) in the past year for costs related to a fire. Also some significant costs for deferred maintenance that had to happen. Some routine plowing and lawn/field maintenance that I could do myself but that would take capital costs (and time). So not a typical couple of years but I've spent well over $100K on my house even though it's paid-off. It's far from free once you've written that last check to a bank.
Of course, modern condos will likely be cheaper but now you're paying HOA fees each month.
It’s paid for with RSU’s
That's true too. A lot of people made a lot of money and they can now afford expensive real estate even if they're not making big bucks today absent lifestyle expansion and rational investments.
I'd add that I know a fair number of people who are not necessarily in coastal cities but are adjacent to them that have been exiting. They're mostly somewhat older and pretty comfortable or just have other things going on in their lives. The reality for some is that this isn't a terrible time to exit if you're not really loving things any longer and maybe have some other stuff you'd like to work on--or just retire.
Just looked and they are $23.00/hour in my area (SW Michigan)
Thank you!
This is what one-on-one relationships with our employers gets us
(where one-on-one means one worker's relationship to a chain of command, a department for compensation & benefits, ownership, board, and a network of investors & advisors coordinating on compensation, hiring practices, regulatory politics at a national level)
The alternative is unions correct?
Unions helped Detroit autoworkers so much. I'm not totally opposed to unions but if people don't want to buy the company's product at the price it's offered for (and costs), they can't sustainably force the company to pay workers more.
“ It is not good management to take profits out of the workers or the buyers; make management produce the profits. Don’t cheapen the product. Don’t cheapen the wage. don’t overcharge the public. Well-managed business pays high wages and sells at low prices. Its workmen have the leisure to enjoy life and the wherewithal with which to finance that enjoyment.”
– Henry Ford, Ford Motor Company
Who is today’s Henry Ford?
You mean the Henry Ford who brought in often violent internal company police to prevent unionization? I imagine there are many modern examples if not to the same degree.
Workers were not the cause of Detroit's downfall
No (primarily--although, at the time there were a lot of rigid work rules that surely didn't help). But they also weren't a solution.
There are various ways of organizing
> This is what one-on-one relationships with our employers gets us
Its what an economic slowdown outside of AI gets us, mostly, but yes, unbridled capitalism (with, among other things, neither unionization in the industry under consideration nor strong public protection of labor rights) magnifies that (it also, to be fair, magnifies the upswing in employment on the upward side of the business cycle, but, it also magnifies the adverse consequences of unemployment on either side.)
Exactly. These employers are not your friends and it's all a political game with your role and your manager.
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45834210
This is "AGI" at its finest.
I think we are at the point where tech companies have tested layoffs from unimaginable to on a regular basis and are willing to lay off more employees for the pursuit of this fantasy called "AGI" which actually means a 10% increase in mass global unemployment.
It doesn't matter if you are in tech, what matters is that your (tech) job is no longer safe.
This was an interesting short post, but was disappointed by the lack of links to the sources.
this post is filled with ads and is a low effort rewrite of the OP post: https://www.challengergray.com/blog/october-challenger-repor...
which has more info and did the original work. suggest swapping link for this post. would also pay some money to never see this awful site again on HN. by the time you scroll to paragraph 3 the screen is 50% filled with shoe ads and other random shit
Ok, changed above from https://thefivepost.com/u-s-tech-layoffs-hit-two-decade-high... and we banned the latter site. Thanks!
The headline is also shit. I wish there was a way to flag with context.
If something is worth flagging, context isn't needed. If something has problems that can be adequately addressed by adding context, that's what comments, an not flagging, are for. "Flagging with context" is not understanding the purpose of flagging.
Says who? Your tone vs. your actual authority on the subject are wildly incongruous.
There are many modes and methods for interacting. I, personally, am not fond of the dragonwriter method. I'm sure it has its place, but it's just not for me.
Also, you're holding it wrong.
This is the most awkward crisis no one admits there is, intertwined with two wars, one genocide, and oligarchs uniformly taking over the power across the entire developed world.
> This is the most awkward crisis no one admits there is,
The AI bubble being the only thing holding up aggregate economic numbers is widely acknowledged, and this is just one of many manifestations of that.
> intertwined with two wars, one genocide,
There are more than two wars and one genocide happening now, so that's a really weird insertion.
Doesn't seem to agree with the data on https://layoffs.fyi/
That's because its a shit title editorialization: The article is actually saying that there hasn't been an October in two decades with this many layoffs, not that this October had more layoffs than any other month in two decades.
We've since changed the title. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45870491.
[dead]
MCMA: Make classwarfare MAD again
Sorry, can’t have that. But you can pick men vs women, left vs right, white vs poc, Israel vs Palestine, capitalism vs socialism, religion vs atheism, cis vs trans.
Illusion disillusionment
I’m not from the us, so can someone give me some real perspective? If you have a couple years experience and you want to make at least ~50k a year, is it actually really hard to find a job in tech right now?
Or is this more about senior people not being able to find ~100k a year jobs as easily?
$50k jobs (in your field) are probably harder to find than $100k jobs. Nobody wants to hire a $50k dev in the US - they'd think there's something wrong with you. In the past you could maybe get something in web dev but that's not exactly a thriving industry these days.
In any case, my impression is that juniors are being hit the hardest. They're the easiest to offshore and the easiest to justify as being replaceable by AI (regardless of how true that actually is).
Without delving into all the stats, $50K/year is a pretty mediocre salary--certainly in anything resembling a medium to high cost of living area. Your rent will consume a lot of that after taxes without roommates and even a "paid-off" house will probably not be a whole lot less with taxes, insurance, utilities, etc.
Certainly a trailer home in a lot of places but then not clear how easily you'll get that $50K/yr job.
I don't know a lot of people who could stay in their current house on 50k/year.
Junior jobs are very hard to find right now. They are much rarer than they used to be. However, if you are even somewhat capable you could probably find a role if you're willing to accept $50k total comp (which is very low in most areas) just by being willing to work for less than others.
Certainly, anecdotally, that seems to be the case. There are exceptions like interns who have some in. But whether it's AI or some combination of other reasons, it does seem to be more difficult for juniors than at least mid-career professionals.
$100k a year in 2025 is like earning $55k a year in 2007, accounting for inflation and costs.
The value of money and especially the dollar is getting printed away to worthlessness.
According to usinflationcalculator.com $100K today is more like $64K in 2007.
The current tech job situation in the US is hitting junior developers a lot harder than senior developers, which is why there's a general assumption a lot of it is being driven by the combination of AI and outsourcing.
Whether this is sustainable remains to be seen, there was a big outsourcing trend back in ~2004 in the tech industry here that ended up being somewhat short-lived as many companies realized those efforts were costing them more than they were saving them beyond the short term. Whether or not this time is different with the added AI component, I have no idea. I wouldn't bet on it in either direction.
Its not great out there for senior developers either, but on the senior side its more of a freeze (try not to lose your job because the next one may be very hard to find) whereas on the junior side its more of a clear contraction (keeping your job will be much harder, finding a new one harder still).