Layoffs in 2025 and 2026: what layoff trackers actually count, and who kept hiring

When you are looking for your first or second job, a layoff headline lands like a verdict. The numbers behind those headlines come from a handful of trackers, and each one counts a different thing. Before you let a number decide whether you apply, it is worth knowing what is inside it.

Three kinds of layoff number

• Announcement trackers, such as layoffs.fyi and Challenger, Gray & Christmas. They count layoffs that were announced or reported.
• Official labour statistics, such as the UK's Office for National Statistics. They measure employment, unemployment and vacancies across the whole economy.
• Job posting indices, such as Naukri JobSpeak and the foundit Insights Tracker in India. They measure hiring activity on a platform.

Each answers a different question. Only the second and third tell you anything about openings.

What layoffs.fyi counts

Layoffs.fyi describes itself as a tech and startup layoff tracker and has been tracking layoff events since COVID-19 began in March 2020. Its methodology is short and clear. It tracks tech layoffs that have been reported by the media, announced by the company or otherwise verified, and every entry carries a source link. Rumours and unverified reports are left out, because accuracy takes priority over completeness. As a result, the site says, its figures are likely an undercount of true tech layoffs.

That design determines what the tracker cannot tell you:

• Layoffs at companies outside the tech sector.
• Cuts that nobody reported or confirmed.
• Which function the affected people worked in. The headline figures are employees laid off and companies with layoffs.
• How many roles the same companies opened, and whether the people cut found new work.

Layoffs.fyi also runs a separate AI Layoffs Tracker. It counts layoffs that the company or the press attributed to AI, whether to fund AI investment, to replace people with AI, or in response to AI-driven market disruption. Attribution is by stated reason, so the count rises and falls with how companies describe their decisions.

We have not quoted layoffs.fyi's running totals in this post. They load live on the tracker and change as entries are added, so open the tracker itself for the current figure.

What Challenger, Gray & Christmas counts

Challenger publishes a monthly Job Cut Announcement Report. It counts job cuts announced by US-based employers, grouped by industry and by the reason given, and it separately counts announced hiring plans. The report describes the cuts as announced layoff plans, and identifies locations by the site of the layoff or the corporate headquarters as stated in the announcement. It is a count of US-based employers only.

2025 in Challenger's numbers

From the report for December 2025, released on 8 January 2026:

• Employers announced 1,206,374 job cuts in 2025, up 58% from 761,358 in 2024, the highest annual total since 2020.
• Government led all industries with 308,167 cuts, primarily federal. The leading reason for the year was DOGE Actions, cited for 293,753 planned layoffs.
• Technology led the private sector with 154,445 cuts, up 15%. Warehousing announced 95,317, Retail 92,989 and Services 74,796.
• Artificial intelligence was cited for 54,836 announced cuts in 2025, and for 71,825 since Challenger began tracking that reason in 2023.
• Announced hiring plans fell to 507,647, down 34% from 2024 and the lowest total since 2010.

2026 so far

From the report for August 2026, released on 2 September 2026:

• Employers announced 529,914 cuts through August, down 41% from 892,362 in the same months of 2025. Excluding government, cuts were down 15%.
• Technology announced 155,126 cuts through August, up 52%, and accounts for 29% of all cuts announced this year.
• Transportation followed with 42,279, up 271%, then Health Care and Products with 35,637, Consumer Products with 28,574 and Services with 26,778.
• Twenty of the 30 industries Challenger tracks announced fewer cuts than a year earlier. Government was down 92% and Retail down 84%.
• AI was cited in 116,175 announced cuts through August, about 22% of the total and the leading reason year to date, although in August itself it fell to fourth.
• Announced hiring plans reached 119,825, up 37% on the same period of 2025. Technology led with 19,751 planned hires, followed by Aerospace and Defense with 16,541 and Automotive with 14,937.

Read the technology lines together. The same industry is announcing the most cuts and the most hiring plans. That is not a contradiction. Companies are closing some roles and opening others at the same time, and an announcement count cannot separate the two. Andy Challenger, commenting on the August figures, noted that employers are planning more hires than last year but that the positions do not appear to be filling quickly.

Which functions were cut, and which kept hiring

The honest answer is that none of these trackers measures function. Challenger reports industries and stated reasons. Layoffs.fyi reports companies and employee counts. Anyone who tells you that marketing or HR was hit hardest on the basis of these numbers is inferring it.

Function-level signals come from job posting data instead. In India, foundit's Insights Tracker for August 2026 splits hiring activity into 13 functional areas. Against an overall annual decline of 10%, Marketing and Communications rose 20% and Finance and Accounting 4%, while Sales and Business Development fell 10%, HR and Admin 5%, Procurement and Supply Chain 5%, and Creative 12%. That is one platform in one month, but it measures the thing a fresher actually wants to know.

The UK: an official count

The Office for National Statistics published its labour market overview for September 2026 on 15 September 2026. It is not a layoff tracker, and that is its value.

• Payrolled employees, from HMRC administrative data, fell by 101,000 (0.3%) between July 2025 and July 2026.
• The unemployment rate for people aged 16 and over was 4.9% in May to July 2026, up 0.2 percentage points on the year.
• Vacancies fell by 8,000 to 702,000 in June to August 2026. Outside the pandemic period, the last time vacancies were that low was August to October 2014.
• The ONS says feedback from its vacancy survey suggests smaller firms may not be recruiting because of increases in labour costs.

For a graduate in the UK, the vacancy figure says more than any layoff headline, because it counts openings. It also says something plain: the UK market in mid-2026 has fewer of them.

What this means for a job search in India, the UAE or Germany

The two trackers most quoted in the news are Challenger, which counts US-based employers, and layoffs.fyi, which counts reported tech layoffs. Neither is a measure of the Indian, Emirati or German labour market, and a rising total in either says little about whether a Bengaluru insurer, a Dubai retailer or a Munich manufacturer is hiring a junior analyst this month.

• Read the reason, not the total. Restructuring, closings and AI are different stories with different implications for who gets hired next.
• Put hiring plans and vacancies next to cuts. A cut without its matching hiring number is half a picture.
• For India, use posting indices such as Naukri JobSpeak and foundit, and remember each reflects one platform.
• Target the part of a company that is growing. The 2026 figures show one industry doing both at once.
• Spend applications on roles that exist today: all open roles, or roles in India, the UAE, Germany and the UK.

In a market where employers are cutting and hiring at once, the candidates who get through are the ones whose ability is easy to check. A verified skill is built for exactly that moment.