Over 1.1 million jobs were lost in the U.S. in 2025, marking the worst year of layoffs since the COVID pandemic. Among the most impactful were the workforce reductions announced by United Parcel Service (UPS), Amazon, and Intel, three giants in their respective sectors, with over 100,000 layoffs between them alone.
UPS: 48,000 jobs cut
United Parcel Service (UPS) undertook one of the largest workforce reductions in its history, cutting approximately 48,000 jobs across its global operations in 2025. This included about 34,000 operational roles and roughly 14,000 management and white-collar positions.
The layoffs were part of a broader restructuring effort aimed at simplifying UPS’s network, lowering operating costs, and shifting the company’s focus toward higher-margin services, such as international logistics and healthcare deliveries.
In addition, UPS is set to reduce Amazon deliveries (Amazon has been UPS’ biggest customer) by more than 50% by the second half of 2026, a move UPS says will help improve profitability.
Amazon: 14,000 jobs already cut; 30,000 more may be impacted
Amazon entered 2025 with one of its largest layoffs in company history, announcing cuts that could affect up to 30,000 employees, including approximately 14,000 corporate roles that have already been executed. These reductions represent roughly 4% of Amazon’s corporate workforce and form part of a broader initiative to streamline operations and reallocate resources toward key strategic priorities such as cloud computing (Amazon Web Services/AWS) and artificial intelligence.
CEO Andy Jassy and other executives have emphasized that the company’s rapid expansion during earlier pandemic years left it with excess capacity in certain areas, prompting a recalibration. While automation and AI were cited by Amazon executives as tools impacting some layoffs, the job cuts also reflect broader cost-cutting measures amid slower growth and rising operational expenses.
Intel: 24,000 jobs cut globally (~5,500 in the US)
The technology giant Intel announced a substantial reduction in its global workforce in 2025, with around 24,000 positions eliminated globally as part of cost-saving and restructuring initiatives. The change comes amid leadership changes; CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who took over in March 2025, initiated an aggressive turnaround plan aiming to make Intel “leaner, faster, and more efficient.”
These layoffs represent a reduction of Intel’s workforce by around 15%, making it one of the largest restructuring efforts in Intel’s recent history. While these layoffs were global, the US experienced significant layoffs in states such as Oregon and California, among others.
What’s in store for 2026?
Across these companies, several common themes explain the layoffs: a shift toward automation and AI, over-hiring during previous growth periods (such as the pandemic), slowing consumer demand, and the need to preserve profitability in uncertain economic conditions.
According to new data from staffing and recruiting leader HireQuest, Inc, the 2026 labor market is “poised for stabilization and strategic reset”, which hopefully means a less volatile year of massive job cuts and US-based facility closures.
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