This Is the Industry Laying Off the Most People

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Mar 9, 10:30AM EST

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This Is the Industry Laying Off the Most People — © Noam Galai / Getty Images

Unemployment in the United States is near an all-time low, at least as measured by the jobless rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in February, the unemployment rate was 3.8%, as the economy added 678,000 people. The jobless rate was uneven. The unemployment rate among white Americans was 3.3%. Among Hispanics, it was 4.4%. Among Black workers, the figure was 6.6%. Among Asian Americans, the number was 3.1%, and among teenagers 10.3%.

The authors of the report added: “Job growth was widespread, led by gains in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, health care, and construction.”

Among the firms that measure jobs added and subtracted each month is Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Its data show that there were 15,245 cuts in February, down from 19,064 in January. The cuts were the lowest since June 1997. Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, commented: “The latest numbers give more evidence that job creation is strong, and employers continue to hold fast to their workforces. The churn in the labor market is coming from resignations.”

Job additions reached 215,127, based on “hiring plans,” the highest monthly total since September 2021.
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Over the course of the first two months of 2022, several industries had significant layoffs. The health care sector, which encompasses hospitals, health care products manufacturers and other care-related entities, had 8,928 cuts. This was followed by government jobs at 3,683 and warehousing at 3,460. Other industries with relatively high numbers were entertainment and leisure at 2,723 and services at 2,573.

Four industries had no layoffs in the first two months of the year. These were the legal, mining, fintech and chemical industries. Fintech is among the new hot industries. The goal of its creators is to replace traditional banking and financial services. New companies in this sector have raised billions of dollars from venture capital firms. Overall, the technology industry had only 187 layoffs in the first two months of the year.

These 20 industries had the highest number of layoffs in the first two months of 2022:

Health Care/Products (8,928)
Government (3,683)
Warehousing (3,460)
Entertainment/Leisure (2,723)
Services (2,573)
Consumer Products (1,722)
Food (1,313)
Financial (1,148)
Education (1,096)
Insurance (870)
Non-Profit (769)
Retail (761)
Real Estate (737)
Industrial Goods (734)
Transportation (572)
Utility (530)
Aerospace/Defense (467)
Apparel (461)
Pharmaceutical (407)
Construction (304)

Click here to see the 25 highest-paying jobs in America.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.