White-collar workers are increasingly facing pink slips

If it feels like every recent LinkedIn post on your timeline starts with “After X amazing years at…”—you’re not alone.

In recent days and weeks, companies across corporate America have announced tens of thousands of job cuts among white-collar roles, signaling a new normal for the US labor market.

The list is extensive:

• Amazon this week announced plans to lay off 14,000 corporate employees, with a total of 30,000 white-collar layoffs expected in the near future.
• UPS says it has cut 14,000 management roles this year already, out of 48,000 total job cuts.
• Target is laying off 1,800 corporate employees, joining GM, Molson Coors, Paramount, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Rivian in recent rounds of layoffs mostly targeting management.

Driving the trend

Companies enacting the widespread layoffs cite a combination of financial and technological reasons. Investor pressure and rising costs—some of them tariff-related—are pushing companies to streamline operations, cut spending, and reduce bureaucracy.

At the same time, recent AI advances mean the technology is now handling tasks once reserved for well-paid humans (data analysis, scheduling, coding, etc.), leading many companies to cut costs so they can free up funds for future AI spending.

Meanwhile, blue collar jobs are booming. Companies across the economy are currently reporting shortages of employees in the trades, healthcare, hospitality, and construction, according to the WSJ.

Big picture: While the US unemployment rate has stayed between 4% and 4.3% for 16 straight months, other signs point to a cooling job market. There were just 0.98 job openings for each unemployed American in August, down from a peak of 2+ in March 2022 and well below the pre-pandemic “healthy” ratio of 1.2.