DOGE Deep-State Demolition Sparks Surge In Layoffs

Despite strong employment indications from the US PMI sub-components, ADP was a disappointment yesterday, and this morning saw global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas report that U.S.-based employers announced 172,017 job cuts in February, the highest total for the month since 2009 when 186,350 job cuts were recorded. 

Source: Bloomberg

It is the highest monthly total since July 2020 when 262,649 cuts were announced.

“Private companies announced plans to shed thousands of jobs last month, particularly in Retail and Technology. With the impact of the Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] actions, as well as canceled Government contracts, fear of trade wars, and bankruptcies, job cuts soared in February,“ said Andrew Challenger, Senior Vice President and workplace expert for Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The Government led all sectors in job cuts in February. Challenger tracked 62,242 announced job cuts by the Federal Government from 17 different agencies last month. So far this year, the Government has cut 62,530, an increase of 41,311% from the 151 cuts announced through February 2024.

Retailers followed with 38,956 job cut plans for a total of 45,375. This is a 572% increase from the 6,751 Retail job cuts announced in the first two months of 2024.

So far this year, the East region has experienced a steep increase in job cuts, primarily due to the cuts recorded for Federal Agencies. The East experienced a 109% year-over-year increase from 51,186 to 107,109. The District of Columbia saw the largest increase from 60 in 2024 to 61,795 in 2025.

Source: Bloomberg

In fact, Challenger, Gray, & Christmas report that “DOGE Impact” leads job cut reasons this year and was attributed to 63,583 layoffs, both directly to the Federal workforce and to contractors.

None of which should be a surprise, but when we look at the government-supplied data, things look a little different?

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time slowed last week…

Source: Bloomberg

Adding to that peculiarity, jobless claims in the DC area fell last week??

Source: Bloomberg

Continuing Jobless Claims rose back up near 1.9 million Americans…

Source: Bloomberg

Given the number of lawsuits desperately trying to slow/delay the firing of government workers (we use that term loosely), we would expect to se the number of initial claims in DC (and therefore the nation) accelerate further in coming weeks as ‘judges’ are forced to allow Trump and Musk to do what ‘we, the people’ asked them to do…