California hammered as national job cuts jump to a five-year high
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Job cuts across the country are the highest they have been in five years, led by layoffs in California and cutbacks in Washington.California employers announced 173,022 job cuts from January to November, up nearly 14% from the same period last year, according to the latest monthly report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.Nationwide, the total number of cuts climbed 54% to 1.17 million, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in the report released Thursday.
That is the highest they have been since 2020, when COVID forced mass layoffs.The last time national job cuts were this high without a pandemic was 2009.California has been suffering through a storm of restructuring from two of its biggest business hubs: Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
The layoffs have been fueled by economic uncertainty on top of a shrinking entertainment industry and radical rethinking of technology brought on by the dawn of an AI age.Thousands of workers at Intel, Salesforce, Meta, Paramount, Walt Disney Co.and elsewhere have lost their jobs.
Even Apple has announced a rare round of reductions.Workers are on edge as seemingly no corner of the Californian economy has been immune to the cost-cutting.Business Thousands of workers have been laid off this year in Hollywood and Silicon Valley as AI shakes up the media and tech industries amid other economic challenges.The Trump administration’s initiative to cut government spending — through what it calls the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE — was the biggest driver of government job cuts.
At the same time, economic angst and technological change weighed on the private sector.The tech industry in California announced 75,262 job cuts, the most out of any industry in the Golden State this year.Business The tech industry, once seen as a relatively stable place to grow a career, continues to be hit by job cuts in 20...