It’s hardly surprising, then, that US businesses have slashed job announcements as deeply as they have actual jobs. In December, these announcements reached a 17 month low, according to recently released data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. This move comes in the backdrop of increased uncertainty in the labor market. Economic policies and the 2023 seasonal hiring trend have made this uncertainty even worse.
Job seekers at a career fair in Harlem on Dec. 10, 2025, hosted by Assemblymember Jordan Wright. The experience drew in participants looking to find sustained work during uncertain economic times. The picture we see for labor is a very mixed bag. His massive tariff announcement in April 2025 was a major factor in lowering business sentiment and further cooling hiring plans throughout the economy.
According to publicly available data from Challenger, employers announced a total of 35,553 layoffs during the month of December. That’s the lowest number of cuts for job loss this year and a significant drop in planned cuts from recent months. Perhaps more importantly, hiring announcements hit record highs for the month, reaching levels last seen in 2022.
“The true, underlying momentum for job growth is likely much softer and has been much softer for some time now,” said David Michael Tinsley, senior economist at Bank of America Institute.
Combined, the health care and leisure and hospitality sectors account for nearly 22% of all employment. During that period, from January to November 2025, they accounted for an astounding 84% of all jobs created! The other 78% of sectors have struggled deeply, underlining stark inequities in the labor market.
The significant seasonal influence, such as from the holiday hiring surge, lead most economists to believe December’s total net new jobs will be greater than 105,000. Annual job growth for the remainder of the year is expected to be lackluster. “Total job gains for 2025 are on track to be a meager 710,000,” stated Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.
That same trend continued through November. Layoff activity was very low too as well as the rate of people choosing to quit their jobs. This relative stability is a welcome relief from the increased uncertainty that has gripped the labor market since spring this year.
Moving into 2025, the labor market’s path remains a subject of debate among economists. Oren Klachkin, financial market economist at Nationwide, struck a note of optimistic caution in his response to December’s jobs report.
“It’s not super-certain that we’ll be absolutely past all of the shutdown impacts, so we’ll have to wait and see what the numbers look like,” Klachkin noted. Credit: Shutterstock He said that the upcoming December jobs numbers will likely provide a better picture of what’s going on economically. This is a departure from November’s data.
Nela Richardson, chief economist at payroll company ADP, highlighted the contrasting performance of various sectors. “Health services is an expensive type of service for most consumers. Leisure and hospitality [spending] is a discretionary service for all consumers.” She elaborated that these sectors show a K-shaped economy where spending is determined by high-income consumers.
Gregory Daco, the chief economist at EY-Parthenon, described December’s forecasted job creation as a “red herring.” Rather, he indicated that all these gains may have just been figure out the economy’s real bottom line.
As businesses navigate through these uncertain times, the focus remains on how forthcoming data will shape perceptions of the labor market’s health.