The 2026 Layoff Tracker: Which Companies Are Cutting Jobs (And Who’s Still Hiring)

The Numbers Are In, and They Tell Two Very Different Stories

If you’ve been job searching in early 2026, you already feel what the data now confirms. The American labor market is sending mixed signals that can make your head spin.

On one hand, the economy added 130,000 jobs in January 2026, nearly double what economists predicted and a sharp improvement over the dismal 50,000 jobs added in December. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3%.

On the other hand, layoff announcements just hit a level we haven’t seen since the Great Recession. According to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, U.S. employers announced 108,435 planned layoffs in January. That’s a 118% increase from the same month last year and a staggering 205% jump from December 2025.

At the same time, companies announced just 5,306 new hires in January. That’s the lowest total for any January since Challenger began tracking hiring announcements in 2009.

So what’s really going on?

The short answer is that we’re deep into what economists have been calling a “low-hire, low-fire” environment, and it’s creating a labor market that feels frozen in place for most job seekers. But underneath that surface, there are dramatic shifts happening sector by sector. Some industries are hemorrhaging jobs while others can’t hire fast enough.

Understanding exactly where the cuts are falling and where the growth is concentrated is the difference between a frustrating job search and a strategic one. Our 2025 Job Market Year-End Review predicted this bifurcated market would deepen in 2026, and that’s exactly what’s playing out.

The Biggest Layoffs of Early 2026

Let’s get specific about which companies are making cuts. These are the major layoff announcements from late 2025 through early 2026 that are reshaping the employment landscape.

Tech and Corporate

• Amazon cut approximately 16,000 corporate roles in January 2026, just three months after laying off another 14,000 workers. The company cited “removing bureaucracy” but has also been aggressively ramping up AI spending.
• UPS announced plans to cut up to 30,000 operational jobs in 2026, largely tied to its wind-down of delivery arrangements with Amazon. This comes on top of 48,000 job cuts disclosed in 2025.
• Salesforce eliminated fewer than 1,000 positions in February 2026.
• Pinterest announced cuts of 15% of its staff, approximately 675 employees.
• Workday is trimming about 400 workers, primarily from its global customer service team.
• HP expects to cut between 4,000 and 6,000 employees as part of an initiative to streamline operations and adopt AI.

Retail and Consumer Goods

• Target eliminated around 500 office and supply chain jobs to reinvest in frontline store employees.
• Heineken announced up to 6,000 job cuts amid weak demand for beer.
• Tyson Foods closed a plant in Lexington, Nebraska, affecting 3,200 workers, and cut another 1,700 jobs at an Amarillo, Texas facility.

Telecom and Other Sectors

• Verizon began laying off more than 13,000 employees in late 2025.
• Microsoft initiated two rounds of mass layoffs totaling 15,000 positions throughout 2025.
• Telstra announced up to 650 job cuts in February 2026.

The pattern across nearly all of these layoffs is the same: companies are restructuring operations while simultaneously redirecting spending toward AI capabilities.

Interview Guys Take: About 40% of January’s layoff announcements can be traced to just two companies: Amazon and UPS. That concentration matters. It means the overall layoff number, while alarming, isn’t a sign of widespread economic collapse. It’s a sign that specific industries, especially logistics and corporate tech, are going through structural transformation. For job seekers, the takeaway is to research your target companies carefully rather than panicking about headline numbers.

The Hidden Bombshell: 2025 Was Way Worse Than We Thought

Perhaps the most significant revelation buried in the February jobs data was a massive downward revision to 2025 employment figures.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics initially estimated the U.S. economy added 584,000 jobs throughout 2025. The revised number? Just 181,000 total jobs for the entire year. That’s an average of roughly 15,000 jobs per month, making 2025 the weakest year for job creation since the pandemic year of 2020.

More than 400,000 jobs that were thought to exist simply didn’t materialize.

This revision validates what many job seekers experienced firsthand throughout 2025: a market that felt much tougher than the official numbers suggested. If your job search felt painfully slow last year, the data now confirms your instincts were right.

Meanwhile, job openings continued their downward trend, falling to 6.54 million at the end of December 2025. That’s the lowest level since September 2020 and represents a drop of more than 900,000 openings since October alone.

Why Companies Are Cutting: The Three Forces at Play

Three converging factors are driving the current wave of layoffs and hiring caution.

1. Artificial Intelligence Reallocation

AI was explicitly cited as the reason behind 7,624 job cuts in January 2026, according to Challenger’s data. But the real number is almost certainly higher. Many companies frame AI-driven cuts as “restructuring” or “streamlining operations” without directly naming automation as the cause.

As one Challenger analyst noted, “We know leaders are talking about AI, many companies want to implement it in operations, and the market appears to be rewarding companies that mention it.”

Companies like Amazon, HP, and Microsoft have all acknowledged that AI is reshaping their workforce planning. For a deeper look at how this trend is accelerating, check out our analysis of how AI is reshaping the workplace.

2. Tariff Uncertainty

Tariffs were cited for 294 job cuts in January 2026, a relatively small number that masks a much larger indirect impact. According to J.P. Morgan’s 2026 labor forecast, tariff uncertainty is one of the primary reasons employers are hesitant to commit to new hires.

“Both long-term and short-term business planning has remained difficult, and layoff and hiring rates have been low,” said Michael Feroli, Chief U.S. Economist at J.P. Morgan. Businesses are essentially frozen, unwilling to grow or shrink their workforces when they can’t predict what the next six months will hold.

3. Post-Pandemic Overcorrection

Many of the companies announcing layoffs in 2026 are still unwinding pandemic-era hiring sprees. UPS, Amazon, and several tech giants hired aggressively in 2021 and 2022, and the correction has been playing out in waves ever since.

Interview Guys Take: It’s tempting to look at AI layoff numbers and assume robots are replacing everyone overnight. The reality is more nuanced. Most AI-related cuts are hitting specific types of roles: corporate support, customer service, data entry, and routine coding. Meanwhile, companies are simultaneously creating new positions that require people who can work alongside AI tools. The workers who fare best in this transition won’t be the ones who ignore AI or fear it. They’ll be the ones who learn to use it as a career advantage.

Where the Jobs Actually Are: Who’s Hiring in 2026

Now for the good news. While headlines focus on layoffs, several sectors are actively expanding and can’t find workers fast enough.

Healthcare: The Undisputed Hiring Champion

Healthcare didn’t just participate in January’s job growth. It dominated it. The sector added 81,900 jobs in January alone, accounting for roughly 63% of all new hiring in the entire economy. That’s more than double the sector’s 2025 monthly average of 33,000 new positions.

Here’s where those healthcare jobs landed:

• Ambulatory care services: 50,300 new jobs (physician offices, home health, outpatient centers)
• Hospitals: 18,300 new jobs
• Nursing and residential care: 13,300 new jobs

The forces driving healthcare hiring are structural and long-term: an aging population, chronic staffing shortages, expanded outpatient care models, and the reality that these jobs simply cannot be automated. If you’re considering careers that offer real job security, healthcare remains the safest bet on the board.

Social Assistance: The Quiet Growth Engine

Social assistance added 41,600 jobs in January, with individual and family services accounting for 38,300 of those positions. This sector has been quietly expanding for months and offers accessible entry points for career changers.

Construction: Building Through Uncertainty

Construction contributed 33,000 new jobs in January, driven by infrastructure spending, data center construction, and commercial real estate projects. BIM coordination, sustainability consulting, and project management roles are seeing double-digit wage growth in this sector.

Federal incentives from the CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act are specifically fueling job creation in semiconductor manufacturing, battery production, and clean energy infrastructure.

AI-Adjacent Roles: Growth Within the Disruption

Here’s the paradox of AI in 2026: while it’s eliminating some jobs, it’s simultaneously creating others. According to Indeed’s Hiring Lab, job postings mentioning AI are growing even as overall postings decline. AI-related roles saw 25.2% year-over-year growth, with median salaries around $157,000.

New job titles emerging in 2026 include AI Agent Architect, AI Operations Manager, Prompt Engineer, and AI Ethics and Governance Specialist. Companies are actively hiring people who can build, manage, and oversee AI systems rather than simply replace workers with them.

What This Means for Your Job Search Right Now

The data paints a clear picture for anyone actively searching for work. The overall market is sluggish, but opportunity is concentrating in specific pockets. Here’s what that means for your strategy.

Follow the growth. Healthcare, social services, construction, and AI-adjacent roles are where the momentum is. If you’re open to pivoting, these sectors offer the most realistic path to employment right now. Our guide to navigating the job market after a layoff walks through exactly how to reposition yourself when your industry is contracting.

Research before you apply. Stop applying blindly to companies that may be actively cutting. Use Google News alerts and LinkedIn to track which organizations in your target industry are growing. The worst thing you can do in this market is waste weeks waiting to hear back from a company that froze hiring last month.

Think sectors, not just job titles. A project manager’s skills are valued differently depending on the industry. In tech, that role might be getting cut. In construction or healthcare, that same skill set is in high demand and commanding premium compensation.

Upgrade your AI fluency. With AI cited in thousands of layoff announcements, the message from employers is clear: they expect workers who can leverage these tools productively. You don’t need to become a machine learning engineer, but demonstrating comfort with AI tools on your resume is becoming table stakes.

Interview Guys Take: The most important thing to understand about this market is that the “average” job seeker experience doesn’t really exist anymore. If you’re in healthcare, your market is booming. If you’re in corporate tech, it’s brutal. If you’re in construction, you have leverage. J.P. Morgan’s forecast suggests the labor market may improve in the second half of 2026 as tax benefits, potential rate cuts, and stabilizing tariff policy reduce uncertainty. So this period of sluggishness isn’t forever. But waiting it out passively isn’t a strategy either. The candidates who land roles in tough markets are the ones who target their search like a laser, not a shotgun.

Looking Ahead: Will the Second Half of 2026 Improve?

There are reasons for cautious optimism. January’s 130,000 jobs were a welcome surprise. The Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates later this year, which could unlock hiring activity. And the structural demand in healthcare, clean energy, and infrastructure isn’t going anywhere.

But the road between now and that potential improvement will test job seekers’ patience and strategy.

The “low-hire, low-fire” environment means fewer opportunities but also less competition from internal job hoppers. Quit rates remain below pre-pandemic levels, meaning fewer people are voluntarily leaving their positions. When openings do appear, they tend to attract serious candidates rather than tire-kickers.

The labor market of early 2026 rewards specificity over volume. It rewards sector awareness over blind optimism. And it rewards candidates who understand that behind every alarming headline, there’s a more nuanced reality where real opportunities still exist.

The question isn’t whether jobs are out there. They clearly are, especially in healthcare, construction, and emerging AI roles. The question is whether you’re looking in the right places with the right preparation.

The companies cutting jobs today are making bets about the future of work. The smartest move you can make is to understand those bets and position yourself on the winning side of the equation.

---