US-based employers announced a surge in job cuts last month, with the number of planned layoffs rising by over 60% compared to February to 275,240. That’s the highest level since the recession during the pandemic as the DOGE impact continues to reverberate. Challenger notes that there were 497,052 layoffs in Q1 – the highest since Q1 2009 – with more than 280,000 layoffs in the past two months being tied to federal workers and related contractors/agencies.

“Job cut announcements were dominated last month by DOGE plans to eliminate positions in the federal government. It would otherwise been a fairly quiet month for layoffs.”