The stigma around end-of-year layoffs may be easing.
Why it matters: It would be a return to a time when businesses were less worried about the optics of letting people go right before the holidays.
Where it stands: The data is anecdotal at the moment — we still don't have official employment numbers from November — but there are some red flags.
- Job cuts this November were up 24% from the same time a year ago, per private market layoff data from Challenger, Gray and Christmas.
- Private employers announced 71,321 planned cuts.
- That's lower than the October number, but only the second time since the 2008 financial crisis that cuts have been above 70,000 in November. (The other time was 2022.)
What they're saying: The Challenger data suggests that employers are diverging from the norm of fewer firings during the holidays, ZipRecruiter labor economist Nicole Bachaud tells Axios.
- "Throughout the year, employers have been tightening their belts to protect their bottom lines amid rising costs from tariffs and broader inflation pressures. That might cause more businesses to forgo the typical pre-holiday pause in reductions," she says.
- "Stigma may not be as much of a factor as it has been previously, given the uncertainty in the macro environment."
Catch up quick: Before 2008, end-of-year firings were the norm, Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer for the outplacement services firm, said in a release earlier this month.
- It was "the trend to announce layoff plans toward the end of the year, to align with most companies' fiscal year-ends," he said.
Zoom out: It's not hard to find stories of layoffs announced during this holiday season, from around Thanksgiving through December.
- Wells Fargo's CEO said last week that he expects more cuts to its workforce and higher severance expenses this quarter.
- Verizon announced layoffs of 13,000 employees, just a week before Thanksgiving.
The big picture: Employers have reclaimed the leverage they briefly lost during the booming labor market a few years ago. Workers now have fewer options, as hiring rates are low.
- Meanwhile, the overall stigma around layoffs has lifted — people are more willing to talk about getting fired and share their stories on social media.
- And companies have moved from announcing big mass firings to a "forever layoff" world of death by a thousand job cuts.
Reality check: Economists and layoff watchers say they're not seeing a Christmas firing trend show up in the macro data yet. They expect to see layoffs rise in January, as they tend to do after retailers let seasonal staff go.
- "I've heard rumblings about January being another surge," says Brian Elliott, CEO of Work Forward, a consultancy.
- What to watch: The big tech firms are under pressure to cut labor costs to make up for huge AI investments that aren't yet paying off, he says.
Between the lines: Even if companies are more willing, it's still considered Scrooge-coded to lay people off right before what can be a stressful and financially punishing time of year.
- "There's no good time to do layoffs, but there are bad times, and there are worse times, and right before the holidays is one of those worse times," Daniel Zhao, Glassdoor's chief economist, tells Axios.
Yes, but: Layoffs do seem to curry favor on Wall Street.
- "We are seeing companies make layoff announcements as a way of bragging to their investors about cost-cutting," says Andrew Stettner, unemployment insurance expert at The Century Foundation.
The bottom line: There are signs that layoffs are happening with more frequency during the holiday season — and nobody seems to like that, except maybe Wall Street.
