U.S. employers announced plans to hire 16,095 workers in July, a 47% jump from June's 10,933 and the strongest July for hiring announcements since 2022, according to the latest Challenger, Gray & Christmas report. The figure stands in sharp contrast to July 2025, when hiring plans totaled just 3,200 — meaning this year's total is roughly five times larger than last year's comparable period.
The improvement in hiring intentions came alongside a separate bright spot: job cuts fell to 33,429 in July, the lowest monthly total in two years. Through the first seven months of 2026, employers have announced 477,033 cuts in total, down 41% from the 806,383 announced over the same stretch of 2025.
AI Still Reshaping, Not Wrecking, the Labor Market
Artificial intelligence remained the single most-cited reason for job cuts for a fifth consecutive month, responsible for 10,970 of July's reductions, with technology once again the hardest-hit sector at 9,867 cuts. Technology sector layoffs have now reached 149,023 for the year, up 67% from the 89,251 announced through July of last year — evidence that the AI-driven restructuring wave is concentrated rather than broad-based.
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A Labor Market Bending, Not Breaking
“Hiring has also increased over last year by 25%, so while AI is shifting the labor market, it is not dismantling it,” said Andy Challenger, the firm's chief revenue officer, in the report. The framing fits a broader pattern this year in which layoffs concentrated in tech and AI-exposed roles have coexisted with steady — and now improving — hiring intentions elsewhere in the economy.
The data lands just ahead of a heavy week of macro releases, with the government's own labor and inflation figures due in the coming days expected to offer a fuller picture of whether July's improvement in hiring plans reflects a genuine turn or just a seasonal bounce.
