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January shaped up to be a rough month for out-of-work Americans looking to quickly land a job.
A slew of data releases this past week suggested that at the start of 2026, the job market remained stuck in a stubbornly frozen state at best — and flashed further signs of splintering at worst. January’s layoff plans were the worst for the month since 2009, while private employers added just 22,000 jobs, compared to the gain of 140,000 jobs during the same period a year ago.
Beyond the data points, recent weeks brought broad layoff announcements from Amazon, Pinterest, UPS, Home Depot, the Washington Post, and others. And the sector that dominated job growth last year — healthcare and social services — also appears to be slowing down with postings, according to Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab.
“We can’t necessarily stay frozen like this for long. Either things are going to fall into a deeper freeze, or they’re going to have to start to thaw,” Stahle said. “If we look at the direction that all of the economic indicators are going, there’s definite, clear momentum for things freezing deeper, or things getting worse.”
To be sure, the belle of the labor market data ball — the monthly jobs report — has yet to appear. January’s unemployment rate and payroll growth statistics won’t be out until Wednesday morning after a brief delay caused by the partial government shutdown.
Do you have a story about navigating the job market? Reach out to Emma Ockerman here.
Economists expect payroll growth of 70,000, and the Chicago Fed estimates the unemployment rate declined slightly. The report will also include standard revisions to the Labor Department’s 2025 data, which are expected to show the economy added fewer jobs than initially reported. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has even suggested that payroll growth might have been negative by 20,000 jobs on a monthly basis since April.
The government’s final report on job openings for 2025 offered other signs of troubled waters: The economy logged 6.5 million jobs open at the end of December, far short of economists’ expectations and the lowest level since 2020. Even though more recent data on openings from hiring site Indeed suggests the situation didn’t get much worse in January, it’s nonetheless concerning that it hasn’t improved much either.
Read more: Worried about job security? Here’s how to protect your finances.
Meanwhile, the number of people filing initial claims for unemployment insurance increased more than expected in the last week of January, hitting 231,000 in a swing that was likely influenced by severe winter weather, as initial claims have otherwise been relatively low.
