Hearing constant layoff news can sometimes feel like a stressful dream you can’t wake up from.

And the stress might get worse as companies reach historic highs in workforce cutbacks. Intel’s recent announcement of a reduction-in-force (RIF) of up to 20% of its 109,000-person staff, or roughly 21,000 jobs, and UPS’s plans to cut 20,000 employees would make these RIFs among the largest in US history. The biggest RIFs typically have accompanied economic downturns, as when Citigroup laid off 50,000 employees in 2008, and Hewlett-Packard cut 27,000 jobs in 2012.

Economic fears loom large over a workforce that’s already seen 3.5 million layoffs or discharges so far in 2025. HR Brew spoke with economists about what recent RIFs could signal about the labor market and how HR pros can navigate the year ahead.

“There is absolutely economic uncertainty right now. There are many different policies that are at play…that have a lot of people and companies rightfully taking an approach of, ‘Let’s just sit and wait, see what happens when the dust settles,’” Rachel Sederberg, senior economist at Lightcast, told HR Brew.

What’s happening? Companies usually approach workforce strategies based on “exposure to risky factors,” Sederberg said. Tech companies and manufacturers, like Intel, might be more likely to reduce their workforce if they’re anticipating a higher cost to make their products with increased tariffs.

“Companies may be behaving that way, and being very cautious, and taking very just calculated moves of minimizing risk, because we don’t know. None of us know what is coming,” Sederberg said. Companies that offer a service might not be drastically impacted by increased tariffs, she added, and may take the approach of slowing down hiring efforts in anticipation of a recession or worsened economic conditions.

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