The job market was bruising in 2025. The start of 2026 doesn't look much better.
January shaped up to be a rough month for out-of-work Americans looking to quickly land a job.
A slew of data releases this past week suggested that at the start of 2026, the job market remained stuck in a stubbornly frozen state at best — and flashed further signs of splintering at worst. January’s layoff plans were the worst for the month since 2009, while private employers added just 22,000 jobs, compared to the gain of 140,000 jobs during the same period a year ago.
Beyond the data points, recent weeks brought broad layoff announcements from Amazon (AMZN), Pinterest (PINS), UPS (UPS), Home Depot (HD), the Washington Post, and others. And the sector that dominated job growth last year — healthcare and social services — also appears to be slowing down with postings, according to Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab.
“We can’t necessarily stay frozen like this for long. Either things are going to fall into a deeper freeze, or they’re going to have to start to thaw,” Stahle said. “If we look at the direction that all of the economic indicators are going, there’s definite, clear momentum for things freezing deeper, or things getting worse.”
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/the-job-market-was-bruising-in-2025-the-start-of-2026-doesnt-look-much-better-150057009.html
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