A continued wave of high-profile layoffs—now Morgan Stanley cutting roughly 2,500 jobs and eBay eliminating 800 roles—has landed against a backdrop of mixed labor market signals.
U.S. employers announced 48,307 job cuts in February, down 55% from January’s 108,435, according to the monthly report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a primary tracker of U.S. layoff announcements via public disclosures. An improvement, but the year-to-date picture remains elevated. Through February, employers have announced 156,742 cuts, amounting to the fifth-highest January-February total since 2009.
“February’s dip is a nice reprieve from the elevated job cut plans to start the year,” said Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “With U.S. involvement in a growing war in Iran, the end of Q1 may bring more layoff plans as companies tighten belts amid uncertainty and higher costs.”
Why are companies cutting when business is strong
The Morgan Stanley and eBay cuts share a dynamic that HR leaders are seeing across sectors: companies restructuring from a position of relative strength, not distress.
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley posted record annual revenue of $70.6 billion in 2025, with investment banking fees rising 47% year-over-year in Q4. Despite this, the firm cut roughly 3% of its approximately 83,000-person global workforce (about 2,500 roles) across investment banking, wealth management and investment management divisions, per reports citing internal memos and people familiar with the matter.
The reductions were attributed to business priorities, location strategy and individual performance, with the company continuing to invest in other growth areas, according to reporting in The Wall Street Journal.
eBay
eBay eliminated approximately 800 roles, or 6% of its workforce, days after announcing a $1.2 billion acquisition of secondhand fashion marketplace Depop from Etsy. The company stated, “We are implementing measures to reinvest throughout our business and align our organizational structure with our strategic priorities, which will influence certain positions within our workforce,” according to Reuters. This marks eBay’s third round of layoffs since 2023.
Both cases reflect a broader pattern of restructuring as a continuous strategic tool rather than a crisis response.
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Technology and AI are reshaping the numbers
Technology companies led all sectors in February, announcing 11,039 job cuts for a year-to-date total of 33,330, a 51% increase over the same period last year. Artificial intelligence is now a named driver in a meaningful portion of those decisions. AI was cited for 4,680 job cut announcements in February, roughly 10% of the month’s total.
Year to date, AI has been cited for 12,304 job cut announcements, or 8% of all plans so far in 2026.
“Tech is responding to a number of pressures right now,” Challenger said. “AI is the big story, but there are also global regulatory concerns, a slowdown in digital advertising driven by tariffs and economic uncertainty, and higher costs to both employ workers and access funding, forcing companies to make difficult decisions.”
Since Challenger began tracking AI as a reason for cuts in 2023, it has been cited in 91,753 total job cut announcements, approximately 3% of all layoff plans over that period. The acceleration in 2026 suggests the figure will grow.
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