Layoffs spiked in February, led by the Department of Government Efficiency cuts. Employers cut about 172,000 jobs last month, according to the firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas. That's the highest number of layoffs per month since the height of the pandemic in July 2020.

A new wave of cuts targeting career government workers has begun after Trump ordered federal agencies on February 26 to undertake large-scale layoffs.

Donald Trump emphasised that Elon Musk can only advise on employment reduction matters but cannot make decisions. This is in response to concerns about Musk's influence on federal agencies. During Thursday's cabinet meeting,

President Donald Trump said he told his Cabinet secretaries Thursday that they were in charge of staffing decisions and policies at their agencies, not Elon Musk and his DOGE team. Trump's comments, after a closed-door Cabinet meeting that Musk attended,

Layoffs announced by U.S.-employers jumped to levels not seen since the last two recessions amid mass federal government job cuts, canceled contracts and fears of trade wars, offering the clearest sign yet of the toll taken on the labor market by the policies of President Donald Trump's administration.

Unemployment is low, but there isn’t much room to move around — especially for those with highly government-specific skills.

The labor market picked up 151,000 jobs in February, a solid pace, despite a massive layoff among federal workers that began to show up in the data. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1 percent, extending low levels that have marked the past few years. Federal government payrolls lost 10,000 jobs in February.