‘Bad Way to Start 2026’: CNN Business Reporter Breaks Down Disappointing Jobs Report for Trump Admin

CNN business reporter Matt Egan declared Thursday’s brutal jobs report for the Trump administration a “bad way to start 2026.”

The report was published Thursday morning by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. For the month of January, there were more than 108,000 layoff announcements. That figure was double the layoff announcements in January of last year, and more than triple the number in December 2025. As noted by CNN anchor Sara Sidner, it’s the highest number since the financial collapse of the late 2000s.

Egan broke down which industries were hit hardest by the layoffs, adding:

In fact, Sara, as you mentioned, this is the highest since January 2009 during the great financial crisis. Of course, that was just months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Now, as far as where the layoffs are, it’s really largely in two sectors — transportation and technology — really leading the way. In fact, two companies — UPS and Amazon — account for roughly 40% of the announced layoffs. Also healthcare, chemicals, and finance, as well.

According to the report, the leading reasons for the layoffs included contract loss and market/economic development. Artificial intelligence was also cited as a key reason.

Egan also noted that hiring numbers were just as grim:

One other thing to point out though here, Sarah, is this was also a bad month for hiring. Challenger says that just about 5,300 announced hiring plans by companies. That was down 13% year-over-year. In fact, this was the lowest since Challenger started tracking this back in 2009. And remember, Sarah, all of this comes after last year, which was the weakest for the U.S. job market for job growth, outside of a recession, since 2003 under George W. Bush; and this report at least suggests that there was no big rebound during the month of January.

The official government jobs report, Egan mentioned, is expected to come out sometime next week.

Watch above via CNN

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