There was a sharp upsurge in layoffs across the U.S. in March, representing a 205% increase compared with March 2024.
A total of 275,240 job cuts were recorded in March, fuelled by widespread firings orchestrated by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Last month’s layoffs represent the third-highest monthly total ever recorded, Challenger said.
The two highest monthly totals were recorded in April 2020 and May 2020, when more than 671,000 and 397,000 job cuts, respectively, were registered due to the pandemic shuttering the U.S. economy, according to the firm’s data.
March’s cuts were led by losses in federal jobs, largely directed by DOGE, with more than 216,000 government employees fired in March, according to Challenger.
While Musk has said he is rooting out waste and abuse, the steep job cuts to agencies such as the Social Security Administration and the IRS are causing delays in customer services for taxpayers, while some other agencies are being entirely shuttered.
“Job cut announcements were dominated last month by DOGE plans to eliminate positions in the federal government.
It would have otherwise been a fairly quiet month for layoffs,” Andrew Challenger, senior vice president and workplace expert for Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a statement.
The government’s monthly jobs report released today, April 4, showed a slowdown in hiring, with economists forecasting that employers added 130,000 new hires in March, according to financial data company FactSet. That is down from 151,000 new jobs in February.
The unemployment rate is expected to tick higher, rising to 4.2% in March from 4.1% in February, according to FactSet’s polling of economists.
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Since February, DOGE’s cuts have led to more than 280,000 layoffs of federal workers and contractors across 27 agencies, Challenger said.
Another 4,429 job cuts have resulted from the Trump administration’s ending of contracts or reduction in federal aid, with those job losses mostly affecting nonprofits and health organisations, it added.
Meanwhile, employers are also putting the brakes on plans to hire new workers, Challenger found.
Companies have announced plans to hire about 54,000 workers this year, a 16% decrease from a year earlier—representing the lowest hiring rate at the start of a year since 2012, according to the firm’s data.
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