Hundreds of thousands of tech workers are in trouble, new report shows

According to a new report from executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which tracked layoff announcements from companies in several different employment sectors ranging from retail to media, in 2025, the tech industry had the highest recorded number of layoffs for the month of October: 33,281 compared with 5,639 in September. Tech companies have announced 141,159 job cuts this year compared with 120,470 during the same period in 2024, Challenger’s report said. Total year-to-date job cuts in the U.S. are at their highest level since the pandemic struck in 2020, and the firm says that layoffs for the month of October haven’t been this high since 2003 — an alarming statistic considering that the creation of new jobs overall has reached its lowest point in years.