In which month will year-to-date job cuts announced by US-based employers in 2026 reach or exceed 400,000, according to Challenger?
Closing Jan 01, 2027 08:01AM UTC
Challenger, Gray & Christmas (Challenger) is an outplacement services company that reports various employment-related data, including job cuts announced by US-based employers (Challenger, Investopedia - Outplacement). The outcome will be determined using data as reported by Challenger each month (Challenger - Blog). In 2024, US-based employers announced 761,358 in job cuts, up from 721,677 announced in 2023 (Challenger - December 2024). As of the launch of this question, US-based employers had announced 946,426 in 2025 through September (Challenger - September 2025).
This question is a companion with #4698 (800,000) and #4699 (1,200,000).
Confused? Check our FAQ or ask us for help. To learn more about Good Judgment and Superforecasting, click here.
To learn more about how you can become a Superforecaster, see here. For other posts from our Insights blog, click here.
| Possible Answer | Crowd Forecast | Change in last 24 hours | Change in last week | Change in last month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Between January and March 2026 | 7.30% | 0% | 0% | -0.50% |
| Between April and June 2026 | 50.20% | +1.00% | +1.00% | -1.10% |
| Between July and September 2026 | 26.80% | -1.00% | -1.00% | +0.80% |
| Between October and December 2026 | 3.40% | 0% | 0% | +0.80% |
| Total announced job cuts will not reach 400,000 in 2026 | 12.30% | 0% | 0% | 0% |