In normal times, the October jobs report would come tomorrow from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But these are not normal times. So instead of the comprehensive numbers from the federal government, we make do with jobs data from private sources.

And according to one of those sources, U.S. companies announced more layoffs in the month that just ended than in any October since 2003. Yes, before the pandemic and even before the Great Recession.

The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas counted over 153,000 publicly announced job cuts in this country last month.

There were the 14,000 cuts at Amazon, 48,000 at UPS, and 1,800 at Target.

“Across all these industries and job cuts, it is notable that these are not entry level positions exclusively that are being eliminated,” said Andy Challenger, whose firm authored the report.

That’s different from other times we’ve seen layoffs of this magnitude, Challenger said. Usually, they occur during a recession with a certain amount of panic involved. This time…

“It is deliberate. It is for cost efficiencies,” Challenger said.

In other words, companies want to save money right now, and an easy way to do that is to pay fewer employees. That’s especially true in the tech sector, where job cuts have seemed inevitable for a while.

“Because we still had that huge overhiring period from the pandemic, right? And I think we're still coming down from that a little bit,” said Rucha Vankudre, senior economist at TalentNeuron.

Plus, a lot of tech companies are adopting AI tools that can replace workers. But Pavlina Tcherneva, professor of economics at Bard College, said AI is not to blame for many of the layoffs we’re seeing. Instead, the macroeconomic picture is worsening. 

“So now the slowdown in hiring is turning into more layoffs,” Tcherneva said. “So, I think basically, we are slowly moving towards a vicious cycle in the labor market that is likely to get worse.”

But without jobs data from the federal government, it’s hard to know for sure what trajectory we’re really on.  So far, we have not seen a rise in unemployment claims at the state level. And private data from the firm ADP this week showed companies added a modest number of jobs last month.

Plus, workers actually report feeling pretty good about their current jobs, said Justin Heck, head of research at the nonprofit Opportunity at Work. That could mean we’re all just really happy in our current roles. Or… 

“It also could reflect fears about entering the labor market, and a lot of the anecdotal data points to hiring is really slow,” Heck said. “Folks are applying for hundreds of roles and not getting any callbacks.”

When that’s the alternative, Heck said, keeping your current job and hoping not to get laid off, seems OK.