American companies slashed more than 150,000 jobs last month – the biggest October total in more than two decades.
The bombshell figure comes as firms turn to artificial intelligence and aggressive cost-cutting to weather a cooling economy.
A report from layoff tracking firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas shows employers announced 153,074 job cuts in October, up 175 percent from a year earlier and 183 percent from September.
It marks the sharpest rise for the month since 2003, when the economy was still reeling from the dot-com bust and widespread layoffs swept through Silicon Valley.
Challenger’s report noted a striking reversal of a long-standing corporate taboo: announcing job cuts before the holidays.
‘Over the last decade, companies have shied away from layoffs in the fourth quarter,’ said Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer at the firm. ‘But this year, with social media and investor pressure for efficiency, that caution appears to have disappeared.’
The timing has drawn comparisons to Scrooged, the 1988 Bill Murray classic in which a ruthless TV executive fires an employee on Christmas Eve – only to be haunted by the consequences.
The combination of new technology, rising costs and weaker demand is forcing companies to scale back. ‘Some industries are correcting after the hiring boom of the pandemic,’ he said, ‘but this comes as AI adoption, softening consumer and corporate spending, and rising costs drive belt-tightening and hiring freezes.’