Automakers, retailers, and technology companies also shed payrolls.
Layoffs announced by U.S.-based employers soared in March to the highest level since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with government job cuts accounting for most of the headcount reduction.
According to a new report from global recruitment firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, U.S.-based employers announced 275,240 layoffs last month, the highest number since May 2020, when job cuts soared by more than 397,016.
Last month’s planned layoffs were up by 60 percent from February and 205 percent from a year ago, when 90,309 job cuts were reported.
Most of the March cuts were due to a reduction in the public workforce as Department of Government Efficiency-related actions are beginning to take effect in the U.S. labor market. The government led all sectors with 216,215.
“Job cut announcements were dominated last month by Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] plans to eliminate positions in the federal government. It would have otherwise been a fairly quiet month for layoffs,” Andrew Challenger, a senior vice president at the firm, said in a statement.
Challenger confirmed that it tracked 280,253 announced reductions of federal workers and contractors affecting 27 agencies. Additionally, 4,429 intended layoffs resulted from the downstream effects of ending contracts and trimming federal assistance.
In addition, the report noted that researchers attempted to monitor the ongoing developments in federal layoff plans.
“Challenger did not count probationary employee cuts as a whole and therefore, did not include the recalled probationary employees in its hiring totals. It is possible that some probationary employees were included in individual agency layoff plans,” the report reads.
The Trump administration tried to eliminate thousands of probationary employees, but court filings showed that 24,000 were recalled.
Technology companies and retailers, meanwhile, were next on the list, recording 15,055 and 11,709 cuts, respectively.
Overall, employers have announced nearly half a million job cuts in 2025, the highest year-to-date and quarterly total since the first three months of 2009.
Challenger noted that several sectors have been affected by tariffs and have started responding to changes in U.S. trade policy.
By Andrew Moran
