List of Companies Laying Off Employees in October

While the U.S. labor market is still adding jobs overall, layoffs continue to ripple through many industries heading into October.

New data from ADP showed private employers added 90,000 jobs in September, driven largely by gains in health care, education and hospitality. However, white-collar sectors including financial activities and professional and business services lost jobs. This is likely to continue this coming month.

Based on current WARN Act filings, Newsweek compiled a list of the top employers planning layoffs during the month of October.

The layoff announcements are coming at a time when economic data is sending mixed signals.

Employers continue to create jobs, wages are still growing and unemployment remains relatively low. Yet hiring has become increasingly concentrated in health care and service-sector roles.

Many higher-paying corporate, tech and finance positions have become harder to find.

For workers, that means the labor market may look healthy on paper while still feeling challenging for those seeking specific office-based jobs.

The most notable trend among the layoffs is the continued hit to the labor market in finance.

ADP said in its newest report that financial activities employers cut 16,000 jobs in September, making it the weakest major sector in the report.

This is happening as banks undergo restructuring after many of them expanded aggressively in recent years.

“Financial jobs are disappearing primarily because the industry is undergoing two transitions simultaneously, those being higher borrowing costs have weakened areas such as lending and real estate, while AI is allowing banks to perform many routine tasks with fewer employees,” Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor at the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek.

Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup have all appeared in WARN databases during 2026.

Professional and business services, which include consulting firms, back-office operations, accounting services and corporate support functions, lost 11,000 jobs in September.

This is likely tied to slower corporate spending and the adoption of AI tools replacing some administrative and support roles, experts say.

“The easiest answer would be AI and the disappearance of entry-level jobs in the financial sector, but it may be deeper than that,” Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek. “The real answer probably lies somewhere between AI and interest rates. With higher interest rates comes reduced financial activity.”

Already this year, the WARN database shows that hundreds of thousands of employees have been affected by layoff notices during 2026.

According to LayoffAlert.org, more than 317,000 workers have been affected by 3,651 WARN notices filed across 44 reporting states this year.

Still, ADP's latest report suggests the labor market remains resilient overall.

Education and health services added 55,000 jobs in September, while leisure and hospitality added 22,000. Together, those sectors accounted for the majority of net job growth during the month.

"It's a strong report. After a three-month slowdown, job creation rebounded and pay growth remained solid,” ADP Chief Economist Nela Richardson said in the report.

Health care providers are facing worker shortages as the larger population ages, and hospitality has been steadily rebuilding its workforce even as sectors in corporate investment that provide the typical types of entry-level office jobs are floundering.

For many Americans, that translates to a labor market that has many jobs available, but not necessarily in the fields where displaced workers previously worked.

“Higher interest rates will curtail financial activity due to the cost of capital. We may see a slowing in that sector of the economy, but most of the heavy lifting is still in the broader technology space,” Thompson said.

For now, it appears the economy presents a paradox.

Employers are still hiring, but many of the layoffs being announced for October are occurring in industries that have traditionally offered some of the nation's highest-paying white-collar jobs.

“I don't think financial careers are disappearing, but they're clearly changing,” Beene said. “The jobs most dependent on repetitive transactions, basic underwriting, and traditional branch operations face greater pressure, while demand remains stronger for analysts and workers who can combine financial expertise with technology.”

Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Gray R. Thomas