Trump Jobs Catastrophe

How the 3 T's of the jobpocalypse — Trump, tech bros, and tariffs — are destroying the economy

The jobs crisis that started early in Trump's second presidency has already moved beyond the "disaster" stage. It's become a catastrophe.

Among companies that are slashing workers in the Trump 2.0 era:

1. UPS: 48,000 employees
2. Amazon: Up to 30,000 employees
3. Intel: 24,000 employees
4. Nestlé: 16,000 employees
5. Accenture: 11,000 employees
6. Ford: 11,000 employees (unofficial estimate)
7. Novo Nordisk: 9,000 employees
8. Microsoft: 7,000 employees
9. PwC: 5,600 employees
10. Salesforce: 4,000 employees
11. Paramount: 2,000 employees
12. Target: 1,800 employees
13. Kroger: 1,000 employees
14. Applied Materials: 1,444 employees
15. Meta: 600 employees

Thousands more layoffs are happening at Cisco, Oracle, General Motors and Charter Communications.

According to Reuters: "If layoffs accelerate, they could further weaken consumer confidence and the broader U.S. economy, already under strain from tariffs and inflation above Federal Reserve targets."

"Corporate America is getting rocked by historic rounds of white-collar layoffs," says CNBC

CNBC notes that wave after wave of corporate layoffs have created "a growing pile of bad news" that is now casting "a dark cloud on a teetering economy that’s been wracked by persistent inflation, rising delinquencies, falling consumer sentiment and an average effective tariff rate that’s at its highest level in nearly a century."

Amazon recently announced that it is cutting 14,000 corporate jobs as part of its plan to eliminate a total of 30,000 employees. CEO Andy Jassy is determined to prove that AI can be used to replace humans who are no longer required to perform "repetitive and routine tasks."

In September, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff bragged that he could cut his customer support team by 4,000 because, thanks to the company's new AI model, "I need less heads."

After spending on AI, CEOs need to show ROI

The perceived benefits of AI are motivating some CEOs to blame automation for the job cuts they might make anyway, reports CNBC.

Experts are even giving this new trend a name: "AI-washing."

But much of the carnage in the job market is caused by Trump's good old-fashioned stupidity regarding tariffs.

As Reuters noted: "Baby-apparel company Carter's is slashing 15% of office jobs as it struggles with hefty import tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump."

Thanks to the 3 T's of the jobpocalypse — Trump, tech bros, and tariffs — job openings have flatlined

In October, job openings slumped to the lowest level since February 2021, reports CNBC:

• Employment opportunities hit their lowest level in more than 4½ years as October came to a close and the government shutdown dragged on, according to data from jobs site Indeed.
• Indeed’s dashboard of indicators also has shown a decline in salary offerings as job advertisements have declined.

So far in Trump's second term, cumulative job growth is at a meager 0.31%, far below what Biden delivered at this point in his presidency, and lower even than the unimpressive growth Trump achieved in his own first term.

And even though the government shutdown means the Bureau of Labor Statistics won't release its monthly jobs report on Friday:

• Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect the BLS count would have shown a decline of 60,000 jobs in October and an increase in the unemployment rate to 4.5%.

Wage growth is taking a hit, too:

• Year-over-year wages as judged by salary offerings in Indeed postings rose 2.5% in August, down from 3.4% in January.

Trump tariffs have wrecked the plans of small business owners

In the absence of new government data, headline writers found a glimmer of hope in ADP's latest private sector jobs report which showed that:

• Private companies added 42,000 jobs in October, following a decline of 29,000 in September and topping the Dow Jones consensus estimate for a gain of 22,000

But all of that growth came at big companies, which added 76,000 jobs.

Meanwhile smaller businesses employing fewer than 250 people cut 34,000 jobs, on top of the 51,000 jobs they slashed in September.

"The trend away from job growth at small businesses is significant, considering they are responsible for three of every four jobs," notes CNBC.

The big declines of the last two months mean that, based on ADP data, U.S. small businesses now employ 23,000 fewer people than they did in May.

Under Trump, things just keep getting worse

As I wrote in June:

Trump’s new policy of relentless AI accelerationism — including a potential 10-year moratorium on states' abilities to protect their own citizens — is already putting the future of millions, particularly younger and entry-level workers, at risk.

TheStreet.com just highlighted research from UnearthInsight indicating that:

500,000 white-collar software workers could be laid off over the next two to three years, and about 70% of those layoffs would impact workers with four to 12 years of experience.

The population as a whole is getting the message. The latest CBS News/YouGov poll shows that 47% expect AI to decrease jobs, while only 30% expect it to increase jobs.

It's getting harder to separate Trump's stupidity from his lies, and his lies from his dementia

In the midst of Trump's latest jobs catastrophe, our failing president is, as usual, telling us not to believe our eyes, our ears, or the pink slips being handed out by the thousand.

Even as he brags about slashing government jobs, Trump is ridiculously claiming he's creating a private sector jobs boom the like of which America has never seen before.

The only things getting in his way are facts.

Based on the latest available government data, private job creation from January through August 2025 was down 28% vs. Biden's final year in office (and down 86% compared to Biden's first year in office), reports MSNBC.

Which means, setting aside the disaster of Trump's final year in office, "this year is the worst year for the private sector job market since the Great Recession."

And things are still getting worse.

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