More than 100 years ago, IQ (intelligence quotient) established what it means to be intelligent. Then came along EQ, which broadened the meaning with emotional intelligence.

Both were helpful frameworks for the time and context which they emerged, but now our world in-flux demands something new: AQ (agility quotient), which I define as the ability to handle change, uncertainty, and the unknown. As an executive coach to founders and CEOs, I’ve found that AQ is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a non-negotiable orientation toward life.

In my new book, “AQ: A New Kind of Intelligence for a World That’s Always Changing,” I break down the four AQ Archetypes. Identifying yours can help you understand the skills you have at your disposal for handling stress, solving problems, and tackling crises.

This is you if…

• You know what habits work for you and you stick with them.
• In you personal relationships, you value people who have known you for the longest time.
• You will take calculated risks if there is a solid plan in place.
• When faced with an unexpected challenge, you initially feel worried: How can I fix this situation?

Neurosurgeons are motivated by excellence: They hold every aspect of their life to the highest of standards, moving with diligence, conscientiousness, and hard-won expertise.

Strengths: The Neurosurgeon is steadfast and determined. Once they commit to something, they never give up until they’ve succeeded. Neurosurgeons are also a steady and stabilizing force for everyone in their lives, and a source of incredible expertise at work.

Challenges: The Neurosurgeon’s perfectionism can become a fear of failure. They see the world with more skepticism than optimism, and this leads to them saying no to change more than they say yes. They are slow in times of turmoil.

Antidote: The Neurosurgeon must learn to befriend discomfort. They grow by forcing action and decisions at a faster pace than what is typical for them, extending the boundaries of their comfort zone.

This is you if…

• You regularly try out new habits and try to improve what works for you.
• At work, you need lots of space and freedom in your schedule.
• You will take risks if it creates more autonomy for independence.
• When faced with an unexpected challenge, you initially feel annoyed: This wasn’t part of my plan!

Novelists are motivated by freedom: They are unafraid to deviate from the past; thus, they thrive in situations where they are allowed to change directions whenever they want. Freedom gives them the agency to write their own story.

Strengths: The future-­forward Novelist is at the leading edge of their field and up-­to-­date on the latest news. There’s always a bold goal, a big insight, or an exciting book to discuss. Their enthusiasm for proactive change is inspiring to those around them.

Challenges: The Novelist uses change as a way to avoid difficult situations. In hard times, they’d rather pivot than persevere to the finish. Also, when unwanted change rocks the Novelist’s world, they can become overwhelmed and lash out.

Antidote: The Novelist only grows once they learn how to let go of their plans and expectations. When change happens, they must work hard to fight their natural inclinations and embrace reality. Peace comes for the Novelist once they can see the silver lining in unwanted change.

This is you if…

• The wilder a situation gets, the calmer and more focused you become.
• You’re so skilled at in-the-moment responses that you can often neglect planful, future-oriented endeavors. You figure, Everything is always changing. Why waste time with plans that won’t stick?
• You’ll take risks when you have the capacity to deal with the outcome.
• When faced with an unexpected challenge, you initially feel calm: Life is always in flux anyway.

Firefighters are motivated by impact: The Firefighter is an expert at fixing what others believe to be unfixable. Doing work that really matters is a necessity, and they thrive on seeing the tangible results of their efforts.

Strengths: The Firefighter excels when most people would feel stressed out, anxious, or paralyzed. They have an upbeat attitude and a calm demeanor. They see possibility in impossible situations and aren’t deterred by setbacks and surprises. In fact, these shocks keep the Firefighter’s mind sharp and alert.

Challenges: All the time spent fighting fires leaves very little room to be intentional and strategic about the future. Because they do well in emergencies, the Firefighter can tolerate high levels of stress, and sometimes may create chaotic situations, because that’s where they feel comfortable.

Antidote: The Firefighter must push themself to become as adept with proactive change as they are with unwanted change, making the time on a quarterly or annual basis to draw up big­-picture plans.

This is you if…

• You believe that imagination is more important than knowledge.
• You believe that risks are essential to innovation and progress.
• You truly believe that you can do anything you put your mind to.
• When faced with an unexpected challenge, you initially feel accepting: This isn’t what I wanted, but I can make it work.

The Astronaut is motivated by passion: Astronauts follow their passion, whether personal or professional. Their vivid interests and curiosities inform every action and decision. Their intense enthusiasm drowns out any fear, so they hardly register big shifts that can unravel other people.

Strengths: The Astronaut is fast. They are quick to evolve and pivot, moving more swiftly than the other Archetypes. Another gift is authenticity. They are unapologetically themselves, with a unique approach to their life. This combination of speed and passion creates a bold and decisive personality

Challenges: The Astronaut can be so absorbed in their passion that they overlook the boring and tedious details needed to embark on their grand adventure. They may feel like they’re making great strides mentally, but that progress isn’t always reflected in the real world. The Astronaut’s goals may stall from poor follow­through or difficulty rallying others behind their vision.

Antidote: In order to make the most of their natural agility, the Astronaut must learn how to slow down to translate their bold aspirations into digestible and logical components. To find success, they must buckle down to complete the tasks and responsibilities that aren’t their passion but are still necessary.

Even if there were parts of your archetype’s description that didn’t feel 100% like you, don’t dwell on them. The purpose of this exercise is not to match your paradigm perfectly but to give you a thematic lens for self-observation.

These archetypes are intended to be maps, not photorealistic portraits, and like the best maps, they allow for many possible routes. The primary goal is to spend time appreciating you.

Liz Tran is an executive coach to CEOs and leaders and the founder of an AI coaching startup, Inner Genius. She is also the author of the new book ”AQ: A New Kind of Intelligence for a World That’s Always Changing.” Her work has been featured by The New Yorker, The New York Times, TODAY and Bloomberg.

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Matt Kaeberlein got into studying the science of longevity “by accident,” he says.

Kaeberlein is the founder and former director of the Healthy Aging and Longevity Research Institute at the University of Washington, and the co-founder and CEO of a health tech startup called Optispan. Throughout his career, he’s published hundreds of research papers, including many about aging.

In 1998, as a graduate student studying biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kaeberlein attended a biology professor’s lecture about genetics and its connection to longevity, he says. “I was in my late 20s, so aging wasn’t personal yet, but the complexity of the biology just really resonated with me. It seemed like an important problem,” says Kaeberlein, 54.

Kaeberlein joined the professor, Leonard Guarente, in his lab and decided to conduct his graduate research on longevity. “Now, much of my attention is focused on individual people and learning how we can have a positive impact on people’s health span,” says Kaeberlein.

A health span — similar to a lifespan — is defined as how long you live without conditions that can hinder your quality of life, like chronic pain and dementia, Alan Cohen, an associate professor at the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center at Columbia University, told CNBC Make It in December 2022.

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Despite researching longevity for decades, Kaeberlein “didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about” applying his research to his own habits and lifestyle until he started experiencing lower energy levels and aches and pains in his 40s and early 50s, he says.

After the Covid-19 pandemic, Kaeberlein decided to “become really intentional about improving my lifestyle factors,” including his nutrition, exercise, sleep and sense of social connection, he says. Around the same time, he transitioned from academia into entrepreneurship — co-founding Optispan, which advertises personalized longevity-focused medical care for its clients, in September 2023.

Here, Kaeberlein discusses how he’s changed his personal routines in an attempt to improve his longevity and health span. (Always consult with your primary care physician before making any changes to your own routines that could impact your health.)

CNBC Make It: What do you do to keep your body physically healthy?

Kaeberlein: It’s always going to be individual, but I think there are some general principles around movement [that anyone can follow].

You want a diversity of movement, meaning some consistent, low-intensity [physical activity] — what some people call “zone two exercise,” where you’re raising your heart rate regularly. Optimally, you do something at a low level every day. Maybe that’s just walking outside.

I’ll do about 30 minutes on a bike or elliptical in the morning. Or if it’s nice out, go outside for a walk with my wife. I don’t do that every day, but most days. I think many people can relate to this: I have a better day if I’m active early in the morning.

I try to do resistance training four times a week. I split up the workouts by body parts. I don’t think there’s a magic formula, you just got to get into the gym and do it. You can do body weight if that’s better for you. I’ve always liked lifting heavy weights, so that’s what I do. Most people probably [don’t recognize] how important it is to build and maintain muscle mass going into your 40s [and older].

And then the high-intensity [workouts]. Again, it’s about finding something that works for you. What works really well for my wife and I is, there’s a set of 135 stairs in a nearby town, about 15 minutes from our house. Usually once a week, we’ll go to the stairs, rain or shine, and go up and down 10 to 15 times. We listen to music and do it together.

How about brain health? Do you do anything specifically to try to keep your brain sharp?

Learning new things is one really great way to “exercise your brain.” I think with my job, I don’t need to find ways to learn new things. I’m always reading and learning and trying to understand new trends in the space.

Part of this is about figuring out a way to stimulate your brain that you find enjoyable, and that brings you energy. It’s very similar to physical exercise in the sense that if you feel like this is a huge burden and you don’t want to do it, you’re not going to stick with it in the long run.

I try to go to bed at a pretty regular time, at least on weekdays. I get up at 4:30 a.m., and my wife and I typically go to bed around 9:00 to 9:30 p.m. I try to get seven to eight hours of good quality sleep a night.

Longevity experts often talk about the importance of ”social fitness,” maintaining friendships and connecting with other people. What’s your social fitness like?

The “connection” pillar is the one that I think is the weakest for me. I’m very fortunate to have a strong marriage, and that has been the most important relationship, along with my kids, for most of my adult life.

I’ve tried to make intentional efforts to have periodic and consistent time with friends outside of my family. Taking time to go have coffee with friends once a month, if possible. Really trying to prioritize key relationships, making sure they’re being nurtured by consistent touch points.

I wasn’t [always] somebody who would typically strike up a conversation with a stranger in the elevator, but I’m much more open to those kinds of micro-interactions on a daily basis [now]. When you have a really positive conversation with somebody who you’ve never met before, that brings energy and you feel good afterwards. Or if you see somebody who could use a helping hand, even if it’s just taking their bag down on the airplane, or holding the door open.

Trying to have those kinds of positive interactions and being intentional about it has been beneficial for me.

Let’s talk about your daily diet. Are there any foods that you eat either more or less to improve your health and wellness?

I make a dedicated, intentional effort to largely avoid processed foods like chips and breakfast cereal, [especially ones] that have added sugars. I have really learned to love salads. If somebody told me 10 years ago, you’re going to have a choice between super nachos or a steak salad at a Mexican restaurant, and you’re going to pick the steak salad, I would have been like, “You’re crazy.” But I do that today.

I eat a lot of yogurt. I pay attention to protein, and probably get about a gram of protein per pound of body weight. And I get a lot of fiber, usually about 60 to 80 grams of fiber a day, [including] a lot from vegetables.

One thing I like, and I’m waiting to see [more research on it] because it almost seems too good to be true, is Keto bread. It typically has 10 to 12 grams of fiber per slice. One of my go-to meals is an avocado sandwich with Keto bread. Sometimes I’ll put some lean turkey in there. It’s got a bunch of fiber, a bunch of protein and healthy fats.

I always end with this question because I think it’s interesting to see what longevity experts are looking into these days: What are you reading?

A lot of what I read is either the primary literature or other types of articles related to health and wellness.

One of the areas that I’m doing a deep dive on right now is peptides, and really trying to understand where a lot of them come from. What data do we have around different peptides that are being prescribed? How do they work? How likely are they to be beneficial? How dangerous are they potentially going to be?

I’m really trying to separate the signal from the noise because I get asked about it a lot, and I want to make sure that I really have a good understanding.

Here’s a quick summary of Kaeberlein’s health and wellness habits:

• For his physical health: Getting a combination of low-intensity and high-intensity exercise, strength training and cardio. Adjusting his physical activity as he gets older.
• For his brain health: Prioritizing a healthy sleep schedule of seven to eight hours of sleep a night. Constantly learning new things to “exercise” his brain.
• For his social fitness: Spending quality time with his family, and scheduling time once a month to catch up with friends. Engaging in “micro-interactions” with strangers in passing.
• For his diet: Eating a balance of vegetables and protein. Getting between 60 to 80 grams of fiber a day.
• For his media diet: Reading up on health literature to stay updated on new research and trends.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Account manager Matt Richards, 23, deleted all his social media apps from his phone last year, and was surprised to find that his life changed for the better.

Richards had been using a smartphone since he was 11 years old and grew up with the device like most Gen Z and millennials. However, in the past few years, he noticed social media didn’t feel as fun anymore with artificial-intelligence slop dominating his feed, influencers advertising brands, and constant lifestyle comparison.

“I think people back then used to take a break from the real world by going on their phone, but now people are taking a break from their phone to spend time in the real world,” Richards told CNBC Make It in an interview.

As many of his Gen Z friends also caught on, he noticed instant benefits, from connecting with people in real life to feeling more confident about himself.

Going chronically offline is the latest trend to grip young people, and ironically it’s going viral on social media. There’s been an surge in TikTok videos of people vowing to delete social media apps in 2026 and engaging with in-person and analog hobbies.

When I discovered the trend, I decided to make a post on LinkedIn to see if there were any young people willing to speak to me about going offline. To my surprise, I received nearly 100 responses from Gen Z and millennials sharing stories about social media detoxes and digital burnout.

They talked about ditching their smartphones for flip phones, visiting record stores to buy vinyl, taking up analog hobbies like knitting, and most importantly, connecting with their friends in person.

A 2025 Deloitte consumer trends survey of more than 4,000 Brits found that nearly a quarter of all consumers had deleted a social media app in the previous 12 months, rising to nearly a third for Gen Zers.

Meanwhile, social media use has steadily declined, with time spent on the platforms peaking in 2022, an analysis of the online habits of 250,000 adults in more than 50 countries by the Financial Times and digital audience insights firm GWI found.

Globally, adults 16 and over spent an average of two hours and 20 minutes per day on social platforms by the end of 2024, down almost 10% since 2022, with the decline being particularly pronounced amongst teens and 20-something-year-olds.

Jason Dorsey, President of the Center for Generational Kinetics, said that the increased “nastiness and divisiveness” online, including from leaders and politicians, is driving young people away from social media as they seek out greater control of their lives.

“We’re seeing that a group of Gen Z [and millennials] is choosing to leave social media entirely, and probably a larger group that’s choosing just to limit social media as they sort of regain more of what they’re trying to find: balance and security and safety in their life,” Dorsey said in a conversation with CNBC Make It.

Young people deleting their social media platforms cite the increasing pressures of being online as well as the damage to their mental health.

Deloitte’s consumer survey showed that almost a quarter of respondents who deleted social media reported that it was because it negatively impacted their mental health and consumed too much of their time.

“I feel like social media is now more like a pressure platform … you’re being sold everything, everywhere,” Richards said, adding that he felt like he didn’t have enough things or had accomplished enough in his career.

Similarly, 36-year-old millennial entrepreneur Lucy Stace told CNBC Make It that she’s limiting her social media use because it’s “diminishing” her mental health despite it being essential to her business.

“We are just inundated all of the time with so much information … our brains aren’t capable of handling that much information,” she said. “We’re actually diminishing our brain’s capacity to be able to look inward and listen to ourselves, and we’re value tagging all of these things that aren’t actually important to us.”

Tech giants face “tremendous pressure” to monetize everything and drive revenue and profit, which is off-putting to younger generations, generational expert Dorsey explained.

“The result of that is that Gen Z, who are already sensitive to being advertised to  —  they are the most advertised-to generation in the history of the world  —  now they’re getting advertised to even more and their feeds feel just commercial after commercial,” Dorsey said.

As the tide shifts against social media, account manager Richards noted that those who have gone offline have become more interesting. In the past, it was cooler to have lots of followers, but that appeal has faded, Richards noted.

“I think we’re definitely seeing a trend where people that are offline, unreachable, have a sort of cool factor around them, in terms of this person doesn’t need validation from how many likes or followers (they have) … and living life like they were in the 80s,” he added.

Social media manager Julianna Salguero, 31, said that social media stopped being cool when politicians and brands started using the platform.

“The more that we see brands and government officials and everybody being as online as you are, as a casual user, the more you’re going to want to pull back and switch it,” she said.

As the digital generation struggles to make friends and find partners, they’re instead seeking out in-person events from speed dating to professional networking, citing high levels of loneliness and isolation as a key driver.

The University of Sheffield’s digital media lecturer, Ysabel Gerrard, said going offline is a way for young people to take back control of their lives. Social media forces users to go through an “extremely exhausting process” of having to create an identity and edit themselves, she said.

“There’s an unbelievable wealth of literature now to tell us that the person we are on social media is not, and cannot be, the same person who we are in face-to-face settings,” Gerrard told CNBC Make It. “It’s so much more than a trend.”

However, GWI analyst Chris Beer said he’s not convinced that the FT and GWI findings reflect a structural shift and is instead a “legitimate post-pandemic correction,” as people are spending less time at home and therefore less time on social media.

He said shift is “largely due to structural time allocation,” especially for younger users, rather than “an attitude-driven wholesale rejection of digital media,” as social media is still very integrated into people’s lives in areas including shopping, news and education.

In a Substack post in September, social media manager Salguero expressed a yearning to have lived life in the ’90s when dating apps and doom scrolling weren’t a prerequisite of being a young adult.

The article titled “How to have an analog fall” wasn’t about doing digital detoxes or setting timers to limit social media use. Instead, Salguero outlined all the hobbies one could have outside of social media from writing physical letters, going on lunch dates, or opting for physical media like newspapers.

The post received 5,000 likes, and Salguero told CNBC that going analog is a “quiet revolution” against social media, streaming, and content overload.

“When you spend too much time in that world, it’s rewiring your brain to perceive things algorithmically, where I’d rather perceive things as I come across them, so for me the going analog of it all isn’t necessarily throwing my phone into the ocean, it’s more about ‘how do I reset my relationship with it’,” she said.

Indeed, more young people are increasingly turning towards physical media, such as purchasing vinyl and record players, as they seek a break from digital life. Others are investing in flip phones, a relic of the 2000s.

Now, entrepreneur Stace and her boyfriend have started building a record collection and visit record stores when they can.

Meanwhile, after deleting all the social media apps off his smartphone, Richards said his conversation with CNBC Make It has motivated him to purchase a brick phone, too.

When Yeli Heidecker and her husband, Benjamin, both 32, decided they were going to downsize to a barndominium — a building designed to look like a barn, but with a traditional living space inside — they started looking for the perfect lot.

In early 2024, the couple purchased a two-acre lot in west-central Texas for $45,000 and began construction on the barndominium. Around the same time, they convinced Yeli’s mom, Liliana Villanueva, to move down and live in an RV on the property.

Yeli says Villanueva was experiencing some health issues at the time. And because she is a stay-at-home mom and content creator, Yeli says it would be easy to be around to help her mom. Plus, the idea of having her kids’ grandmother close by sounded amazing, she adds.

But shortly after the couple moved into the barndominium in late 2025, they began considering a more permanent living arrangement for Villanueva, Yeli says.

“We were afraid she was gonna trip and fall and hurt herself or something. We had the bright idea to do a tiny barndo like ours, but we’ll do it ourselves,” Yeli tells CNBC Make It.

Before taking the DIY route, the Heideckers obtained quotes for a small barndominium measuring about 400 square feet. The quotes ranged from $63,000 to $93,000, so they decided the best option was to do it themselves and stick to a $30,000 budget.

On top of that, Yeli and Benjamin decided to surprise Villanueva by building the tiny home while she was in Mexico visiting family for six weeks.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it was chaotic,” Yeli says. “It was definitely hard, but at the same time, it was so incredibly fulfilling and amazing to see all the work we did.”

The couple hired contractors to handle the shell, electrical work and concrete flooring for the barndominium. The rest of the work, including installing the kitchen, painting the house and putting up the walls and drywall, was done mostly by Benjamin, Yeli says, but she helped out when she wasn’t taking care of their four young children.

“It was special because we built this for Abuela,” Yeli says, using the word for grandmother in Spanish. “It was emotional seeing it finished because of all the memories of my husband and I working on it. It feels like it bonded us on a deeper level.”

When Villanueva returned to Texas in November 2025, she moved into the tiny home even though it wasn’t fully finished.

“It was the most beautiful surprise I could have found after getting back from my trip. I am very happy with it,” Villanueva tells CNBC Make It. “I laugh because the house is small, but I have absolutely everything I need. It’s perfect. I love that I’m close to my daughter and my grandchildren. I feel protected and feel safe.”

“As immigrants, when you come here, you’re fighting the American Dream, and while she’s never owned a home on paper, just seeing her have that for herself was very emotional,” Yeli adds.

The one-bedroom, one-bathroom tiny home fits a washer and dryer as well as a full-size oven, stove and refrigerator. The Heideckers created the layout of the home with Villanueva’s specific needs in mind.

As of January, the only remaining task is tiling the bathroom, which Yeli says will happen soon.

Here’s a breakdown of the major expenses for the tiny home, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. All expenses are rounded.

• Trim: $250
• Paint: $350
• Flooring: $600
• AC mini split: $750
• Cabinets: $1,300
• Plumbing: $1,500
• Drywall and lumber: $1,700
• Electricity: $1,775
• Appliances: $2,000
• Insulation: $2,100
• Miscellaneous: $6,500
• Barn shell: $12,500

In total, the home cost $31,325, including a number of miscellaneous expenses, such as power tools, countertops, lighting and faucets.

Because the tiny home is on the same property as the Heideckers’, it doesn’t have separate utility bills. Instead, the couple covers all monthly expenses, such as water, electricity and gas, while Villanueva pays about $100 a month for cable TV.

Since Villanueva moved in, Yeli says the only thing the couple regrets is not making the tiny home a little bigger, specifically in the bedroom. But for the mother and daughter, the best part is being able to live next to each other.

“It’s nice to see my kids being able to have Grandma just there, especially after we lived away from family for a very long time,” Yeli says.

Although the tiny home isn’t officially finished, Yeli and Villanueva say the barndominium and tiny home are their forever homes, respectively.

“I’m doing very well here and have no plans on ever leaving,” Villanueva says. “I have it very good here and get to enjoy it alongside my family.”

Despite how chaotic the process was for the couple to get the tiny house done in such a short amount of time, Yeli says she would do it all over again — and recommends it to others, too.

“It’s definitely worth it if you have aging parents, but even if you don’t have an aging parent, having a special unit for someone, or when you have family coming over, or something like that, it’s nice,” Yeli says.

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Layoff and hiring rates have been low for months. That may be starting to change, and not in a good way.

Job cuts announced last month hit their highest January total since 2009, according to a report released Thursday by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. This is in line with a growing trend of jobs being trimmed across the country.

Challenger’s report, which is based on company announcements of job cuts, showed that U.S.-based employers announced 108,435 job cuts last month, marking an increase of 118% from the 49,795 cuts announced in January 2025, and a 205% increase from the 35,553 job cuts announced in December.

The report also noted last month saw the lowest January hiring level since 2009. The official January jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics comes out next week after a delay due to the brief government shutdown. The previous BLS report showed U.S. job openings dropped to a five-year low in December.

Experts say the broader picture on jobs is still relatively strong when considering metrics like unemployment rates. But that picture doesn’t reflect how people are feeling in the job market, and Challenger’s findings may indicate broader problems in job growth.

The stagnant job market is seeing an uptick in layoffs without a corresponding uptick in hiring. So even though layoff numbers are near pre-Covid levels, according to Glassdoor chief economist Daniel Zhao, workers fear losing their jobs because sluggish hiring might make it more difficult to find another.

“Worker anxiety about layoffs is clearly high, even if it’s not trending 1-to-1 with the hard data,” Zhao says.

The year kicked off with a few high-profile mass layoff announcements. Amazon last Wednesday announced its biggest-ever round of layoffs, affecting 16,000 workers, on top of another 14,000 it laid off in October. UPS announced it’s planning up to 30,000 operational cuts this year as it expects to handle fewer deliveries for Amazon, its largest customer.

While the surge in layoff announcements is “attention-grabbing,” says Zhao, “the data suggests the increase in layoffs has been more subdued.”

The unemployment rate remains in the 4% range, which is considered healthy, but it has inched up over 2025 and hit a four-year high of 4.6% in November. As for job growth, nonfarm payrolls fell significantly in October, the third time in six months they were net negative, but came in slightly better than expected in November.

In the midst of this hiring picture, job seekers and workers are feeling uncertain; worker confidence in the ability to find another job fell to a record low of 44.9% in September.

Despite the high-profile cuts, “the probability of losing your job has not gone up all that much,” says Laura Ullrich, Director of Economic Research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab. Many of the layoffs, she said, are currently concentrated at companies that over hired, are making large AI investments or both. Amazon and UPS together account for over 40% of the January cut announcements in the Challenger report.

Layoffs in tech and logistics follow big booms in business in those sectors during the pandemic, when many of those companies in turn ramped up hiring. “Some of this is still about a correction from that period of time,” Ullrich says.

Those sectors could be better described as “low-hire, some-fire,” she says, but the overall macroenvironment remains low-hire, low-fire.

The bigger numbers, like those in recent company announcements, also don’t necessarily reflect the details of an employer’s plan. “It’s not unusual to get forward-looking statements in the first month of the year from companies as they wrap up their previous fiscal year,” Zhao says. Some of the companies, like UPS, “are talking about planned job cuts over the course of the year or plans to cut headcount via attrition, which are not all the same as a more typical layoff,” he notes.

Many workers have nevertheless been feeling stuck in their jobs because of low hiring and fear of layoffs.

“Even though the unemployment rate might be at a relatively healthy number and people are employed at a relatively healthy level, that doesn’t mean people have to be happy about the job they’re in,” Zhao says.

Low job seeker confidence and continued low hiring rates could be driving people to keep job-hugging. “People are holding on because they do feel this confusion,” Ullrich says. “There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

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