Corporate America’s post-pandemic hiring caution has flipped. The trend of “labor hoarding”, where companies held on to employees for fear of losing talent in a tight job market, appears to be over. Major employers including Amazon, Target, Meta and UPS have launched large-scale job cuts in recent weeks, signaling a reset in workforce strategy, said a report by the Wall Street Journal.
From Hiring Freeze to Layoffs
In the years following the pandemic, companies struggled to rebuild their workforces, choosing to retain employees even during slower growth cycles. The logic was simple: rehiring was costly and difficult.
But as the labor market cools and economic uncertainty rises, fueled in part by tariff risks and slowing demand, firms are once again cutting jobs to protect profitability.
Recent layoffs include:
- Amazon: ~14,000 roles
- UPS: ~48,000 management & operations positions
- Target: 1,800 corporate roles
- Meta: multi-thousand workforce adjustment across units
Amazon’s workforce, for example, ballooned from 800,000 employees in 2019 to 1.5 million last year. Now, management sees room to trim excess capacity.