Do Layoffs Bunch Up at Year End? Microsoft's Exit Offer, ING and Dropbox Cuts, and Engagement at a 15-Year Low

Microsoft made $36.6bn in a quarter and offered about 60,000 staff an exit, ING and Dropbox are cutting jobs, and Gallup has engagement at its lowest since 2011. We tested whether layoffs really bunch up at year end. This week's Paper Cut, with the Cut List.

By James Robbins 23 min read
Man in a suit carries a cardboard box holding a wall clock and files past office blinds at dusk, a year-end layoff scene
Does the box get packed in December, or is that just when we notice? We checked the data back to 1989.

Microsoft reported net income of $36.6bn for the quarter to 30 September, up 32%, and in the same week offered about 60,000 of its employees a voluntary exit. ING reported a third-quarter net result of €1.85bn and said about 400 roles will go. Dropbox told staff its business is profitable while cutting about 9% of its workforce, and Deloitte's Richard Houston was paid £7.1m for the year to May, up 45%, as average UK headcount fell by 1,360.

It is easy to see a pattern in that: cuts announced late in the year, costs booked before the accounts close, savings carried into next year. This issue tests whether layoffs really do bunch up at year end against the records Challenger, Gray & Christmas has kept since 1989, then looks at what employees are saying back in Gallup's engagement data and whether AI has delivered the savings boards expect.

FROM THE EBN NETWORK
CTA Image

Find the right people. Search hundreds of screened employer branding agencies, consultants, platforms and specialist providers. The employer branding rabbit hole now has filters.

Explore the Directory

The short answer: announced layoffs are not systematically higher at the end of the year. Challenger, Gray & Christmas describes December as typically slow, and the heaviest quarter on average is the first, not the fourth. What does gather in the final quarter is the accounting: ING, Dropbox and Comcast have each put a restructuring cost into it, and the results season put several announcements into the same few days.

This Week’s Paper Cut


Prefer to watch or listen? The video and podcast follow this article’s structure, and the article is the full, sourced version.

We keep tracking to a minimum. The video is hosted on YouTube and the podcast is hosted on PodBean, which may place cookies that measure viewing and personalize content. We only load the player after you consent to these cookies. You can update your cookie settings any time.

Why are profitable companies cutting jobs? Microsoft, ING, Dropbox and Deloitte

Microsoft reported revenue of $92.3bn for the quarter to 30 September, up 19%, and GAAP net income of $36.6bn, up 32%, on 28 October. Days earlier it had offered a voluntary exit to about 60,000 employees in the US, Canada, India and the UK, roughly a quarter of the more than 220,000 people it employs, according to the BBC. Staff have until early December to decide, and Business Insider reports that employees at levels 64 and below receive one week of base pay for every six months of service, rising to two weeks for levels 65 to 67, with stock vesting and health insurance continuing. Chief financial officer Amy Hood wrote in the earnings memo, "We expect very few people to select this offer because of the growth opportunities here at Microsoft", and a spokesperson told Business Insider that Microsoft expects 3,000 or fewer to accept.

A Microsoft spokesperson said AI is not driving the offer, according to KUOW. Former Google head of human resources Laszlo Bock told Business Insider that buyouts are "becoming increasingly compelling for older Silicon Valley companies" and "a softer message for morale", while Boston University's Jay Zagorsky said that with a layoff "there's certainty".

ING reported a third-quarter net result of €1.85bn, up 3.5%, and announced a €1.65bn share buyback as part of a €1.9bn distribution. The same day it said it expects around 400 redundancies globally as it restructures its wholesale banking unit, with a pretax provision of around €175m in the fourth quarter and annual savings of around €75m from 2028, according to Dow Jones.

Dropbox is cutting about 200 roles, about 9% of its global workforce, in a memo to staff seen by Business Insider. "Our business is profitable, and we've built real momentum this year", wrote Ashraf Alkarmi, adding that "we can't take the same work and spread it across fewer people". A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission puts the cash cost at $27m to $33m, with substantially all of the expense falling in the fourth quarter, and says chief technology officer Ali Dasdan will step down on 18 November.

At Deloitte, City AM and HRreview report that Richard Houston, now chief executive of Deloitte EMEA, was paid £7.1m for the year to 31 May, up 45% from £4.9m and 93 times median UK employee pay, up from 65 times. Average UK headcount fell from 17,264 to 15,904, which HRreview notes should not be read as the number made redundant, and Deloitte says it offered voluntary redundancy on enhanced terms to some people in audit and assurance. Deloitte UK's distributable profit rose 14% to £899m.

The pattern here is that profit and headcount moved in opposite directions at companies in different sectors in the same week. What this suggests is that "profitable" is no longer a defence against a restructuring, and that employees now read an announcement against the results published beside it. EBN has covered how cuts land in When Singapore's "Iron Rice Bowl" Cracks: What the GovTech Layoffs Mean for Employer Brand and This Week's Layoffs Came With a Catch for Everyone Who Kept Their Job.

Employer Brand POV

Brief managers before an announcement on how the cuts sit beside the company's results, because at Microsoft, ING and Dropbox employees could read both in the same week, and a gap between the two needs an answer ready.


Do layoffs bunch up at year end? What the data and the accounts show

Layoff news does feel heavier as the year closes, but the US data shows no year-end peak. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which has tracked announced US job cuts since 1989, records an average of 207,756 in the first quarter, 181,307 in the second, 176,025 in the third and 187,106 in the fourth. After January's figures, chief revenue officer Andy Challenger said "Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in the first quarter", and the firm's 2025 year-end report called December "typically slow".

Recent years explain why the feeling persists. October 2025 saw 153,074 announced cuts, the highest October since 2003, according to HR Dive, and Challenger's year-end report puts the fourth quarter of 2025 at 259,948, the highest since 2008. December then fell to 35,553, the fewest of any month that year, and January 2026 jumped to 108,435, the highest January since 2009, CNN reports, with Andy Challenger noting that plans "were set at the end of 2025". What this suggests is that decisions are taken late in the year and announced around the turn of it.

This year is quieter. Announced cuts through September total 573,195, down 39% from 946,426 a year earlier, though 2025 included 293,753 cuts that Challenger attributes to DOGE actions, and the fall excluding government is 15%. September's 43,281 was the lowest September since 2022, and Andy Challenger described employers as being in "a wait-and-see period right now". The October figure is due in the first week of November.

The accounting theory has more support company by company. ING expects to book a provision of around €175m in the fourth quarter, Dropbox says substantially all of its expense falls in the fourth quarter, and Comcast flagged last week a $1bn fourth-quarter charge that includes layoffs. Academic work points the same way, though both studies are old: a 2005 paper in the Journal of Applied Business Research by Steven Hall, William Stammerjohan and Gregory Cermignano found that firms make accounting choices "to reduce reported income in the years in which they announce large layoffs", and a 2000 University of Illinois dissertation by Johann Comprix found that questionable restructuring charges appear widespread.

The pattern here is that the accounting logic holds for individual announcements, while the aggregate figures peak in the first quarter and in earnings-season months such as October. Calendar-year companies such as ING, Dropbox and Comcast can book a charge before the year closes, whereas Microsoft's financial year ends in June and Deloitte's in May. The sources reviewed for this issue do not show a company choosing its timing to balance its accounts, and Challenger counts announcements rather than completed layoffs, though economist Menzie Chinn found that they lead the official JOLTS layoffs series. EBN has looked at how job-loss data is built and read in California Built the First AI Job-Loss Tracker. Here Is What Employer Brand Leaders Should Read Into It.

Employer Brand POV

Audit when your restructuring decisions were made and when they are announced, and say so in the announcement, because a results season invites readers to assume that cuts are timed for the accounts.

CHALLENGER, GRAY & CHRISTMAS
Challenger Report August 2026
JOURNAL OF APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH
Employee Layoffs And Earnings Management
FROM THE EBN NETWORK
CTA Image

Your employees know the truth. Does your EVP? At Fathom we measure the "Credibility Gap" between your promise and their reality.

Close the Gap

Engagement at its lowest since 2011, and labour's share of income at a record low

Gallup reports that 29% of US employees were engaged in the third quarter, down two points from the second quarter and the lowest since 2011, with 53% not engaged and 18% actively disengaged, in a survey of 21,648 US adults in August. Its "cares about me" item fell from 40% to 37%, against a March 2020 peak of 47%.

CNN reported the same week that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' measure of labour share, the portion of production paid to workers as compensation, was 52.8% in the nonfarm business sector in the second quarter, the lowest level ever recorded, against 54.7% a year earlier and 65.5% in 1947. Navy Federal Credit Union chief economist Heather Long called it "the chart that keeps me up at night", while the Tax Foundation's Richard DiSalvo argues the decline "hasn't marched off the charts like it shows in the BLS data".

On pay, Britain's Equality and Human Rights Commission said employers should be required to answer workers' questions about colleagues' pay, including basic pay, hours, bonuses, overtime and shift premiums, within a set timeframe, and should be barred from asking applicants about their current salary, the BBC reports. Chief executive John Kirkpatrick said that basing offers on current pay "can embed a history of disadvantage or discrimination in future salaries".

For anyone who owns an EVP, the question is whether the promise survives these numbers. David Macfarlane of TMP Worldwide writes in HR Zone that "An EVP is not a message to be optimised. It is a claim to be evidenced." TMP's proprietary Outthink Employer Brand Index, covering more than a thousand organisations, found that 43% of employers scoring highest on values and proposition score low on content, and that 60% of those assessed on AI give candidates no visible guidance on how it features in applications, though the sample for those figures is not published and TMP sells employer brand advice.

What this suggests is that an engagement reading of 29% and a record-low labour share form the context in which every EVP is now read, so a claim that employee experience cannot back up is the first to fail. EBN has covered the research step in AI-Generated EVPs: Why Skipping the Research Is a Really Bad Idea and the careers-site end of the same problem in The fourth Talking Point: sell the truth, all the way to the careers site.

Employer Brand POV

Pair every claim in your EVP with one thing employees report about the experience, using your own engagement data, and cut any claim with no such evidence, because Gallup's lowest reading since 2011 means employees and candidates will test promises against what they see.


Is AI saving companies money? Gartner's finding, a founder's U-turn and new ways of watching staff

Gartner's HR research, reported by HR Dive, found that about three-quarters of board members expect AI to deliver productivity and cost savings, yet 97% of organisations cannot cut expenses solely through productivity measures. Some 38% of companies are over budget on AI and 85% plan to spend more next year, while 78% of leaders are not aligned on how AI helps in their workplace. Gartner senior director analyst CV Viverito said "Ultimately, organizations will not generate cost savings from AI at this point."

One founder has revised his view. Yasser Elsaid, chief executive of customer-service AI start-up Chatbase, said he "might have been wrong about building with a lean team in the age of AI", and the company, now at 40 employees, plans to double over the next six months, Business Insider reports. At Amazon, vice president and distinguished engineer Terk Terkowitz told engineers in a memo seen by Business Insider that they will be judged on customer and business impact, not AI usage, and warned that using such metrics "could, if used as a target instead of a measure, drive negative outcomes".

Supervision is growing alongside the tools. Anthropic has launched analytics reports for Claude Enterprise administrators that group sessions into workstreams and surface friction and "inefficiencies", which Mashable says include personal or off-topic use. Anthropic says the reports are off by default and that they "aren't designed and should not be used for evaluating individual performance or making employment decisions". Separately, a former employee of Sutherland Healthcare Solutions alleges in a New Jersey lawsuit, reported by Inc. on 7 October, that she was fired after refusing a webcam tool that took about 160 photos a day, which she says conflicted with her doctor's advice. No ruling has been reported.

The pattern here is that AI has so far added to the workload of those managing it before it has reduced a cost line, and the tools for measuring people are arriving faster than the rules for using them. What this suggests is that employees will judge an AI rollout by how it is measured as much as by what it does. EBN has followed the question of who owns the result in The Better You Get at AI, the Closer You Get to Replacing Yourself.

Employer Brand POV

Measure an AI rollout by what it changes in the work, not by how often people use the tool, and tell employees in advance what any usage data will and will not be used for, because Amazon's own engineering leadership is now warning against usage targets.

FROM THE EBN NETWORK
CTA Image

Employer branding works better when people share what they know. EBClub brings practitioners together to exchange ideas, compare experiences, and learn from the people doing the work.

Explore EBClub

Odds and Ends

Three smaller stories.

Fortune reports that about 42% of recent US college graduates aged 22 to 27 were underemployed in June, against a high of 43.4% in October 2020, and the New York Fed's own page shows about 42% for the second quarter. EBN's piece on the other end of the age range, Too Old to Hire. Too Young to Retire., argues that older workers are protected in work but screened out when they apply, citing OECD research that comparable older applicants receive fewer interview invitations.

Forbes and Statista's America's Dream Employers 2027 ranks 500 employers using surveys of more than 10,000 US college students and more than 142,000 employees, blending three years of results. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is first, followed by NVIDIA, Spotify, Activision and Microsoft, which owns Activision.

Addison Group, a staffing firm, reports that 36% of respondents to its survey of 1,000 US adults said they had exaggerated their knowledge, skills or experience, according to HR Dive. It is vendor research and the release does not make the base for the 36% clear, so treat it as a signal.


The Cut List

Nine employers confirmed or detailed workforce reductions this week, from a voluntary exit offer to about 60,000 Microsoft employees to a few hundred roles at Amazon, Dropbox and ING. The reasons given ranged from growth priorities at Dropbox to a regular budget cycle at Marriott, and several employers gave no numbers at all.

This week's confirmed and reported job cuts:

  • Microsoft: a voluntary exit offer, not layoffs, to about 60,000 eligible employees in the US, Canada, India and the UK, who have until early December to decide, with a spokesperson expecting 3,000 or fewer to accept, according to the BBC and Business Insider.
  • ING: about 400 roles globally in wholesale banking, with a pretax provision of around €175m in the fourth quarter, according to Dow Jones.
  • Dropbox: about 200 roles, about 9% of its workforce, according to its memo and an SEC filing.
  • Amazon: no more than 250 roles in its devices and services unit, according to a source cited by Reuters, with Amazon giving no number.
  • Innodata: nearly 550 employees in India, according to India Today, which says the company has not confirmed any figures and that cuts in the Philippines are reported but not quantified.
  • ConocoPhillips: an undisclosed number of employees and contractors in Canada, for the second year running, according to HCA Magazine.
  • Marriott: corporate roles, with no number disclosed and hotel staff not affected, Skift reported, after more than 800 corporate roles went in November 2024, according to Hotel Dive.
  • Skydance: a voluntary buyout programme with no amounts or numbers, alongside a five-day office week, the New York Post reported.
  • Deloitte UK: voluntary redundancy on enhanced terms in audit and assurance, with average UK headcount down from 17,264 to 15,904, according to City AM.

Put the week side by side and the shape is plain. Microsoft, ING and Dropbox announced reductions in the same days that they described their business as strong or profitable, Gallup recorded the lowest engagement since 2011, and Gartner found that AI has not yet produced the savings boards expect. What this suggests is that employers who explain the timing and the reason for a cut together, and who ask employees how it landed, will find the next season of announcements easier than those who leave the calendar to speak for them.

Takeaways

  • Microsoft offered a voluntary exit to about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, in the week it reported $36.6bn of quarterly net income, and expects 3,000 or fewer to accept, according to Microsoft, the BBC and Business Insider.
  • ING reported a third-quarter net result of €1.85bn and said about 400 roles will go in wholesale banking, with a pretax provision of around €175m in the fourth quarter, according to ING and Dow Jones.
  • Dropbox is cutting about 200 roles, about 9% of its workforce, while telling staff its business is profitable, according to its memo and an SEC filing.
  • Richard Houston, now chief executive of Deloitte EMEA, was paid £7.1m for the year to 31 May 2026, up 45%, while average UK headcount fell from 17,264 to 15,904, according to City AM and HRreview.
  • Challenger, Gray & Christmas data since 1989 show the first quarter has the highest average announced US job cuts, at 207,756 against 187,106 for the fourth quarter, and the firm calls December typically slow.
  • ING, Dropbox and Comcast have each put restructuring costs into the fourth quarter, but the sources reviewed do not show any company timing cuts to balance its year-end accounts.
  • Gallup found that 29% of US employees were engaged in the third quarter of 2026, the lowest since 2011, and the BLS reports that labour's share of nonfarm business income was a record low 52.8% in the second quarter.
  • Gartner research reported by HR Dive found that 97% of organisations cannot cut expenses solely through productivity measures, and that 38% of companies are over budget on AI.

Inside EBClub

EBClub, EBN's community for in-house employer brand, talent attraction, TA and HR practitioners, is in Madrid on 4 November, followed by Paris, Rotterdam and London. Here is the calendar, and who to thank.

On the calendar

  • Madrid, 4 November
  • Paris, 24 November
  • Rotterdam, 26 November
  • London, 3 December

Thank you

  • Hosts: Adyen, Unite Students, Datadog, Clubgeist and Linklaters
  • Partners: BrandPointZero, Vouch, TMP Worldwide UK and Happydance Careers Websites

Not a member yet? EBClub is free for in-house practitioners: Join here.

Ready to book? Tickets for every date are in the events section, and thanks to everyone giving their time to share insights and experience with the employer branding community.

SOURCES

# Source Publisher Used for
1 Microsoft Announces First Quarter Results Microsoft, 28 Oct 2026 Revenue $92.3bn, up 19%; GAAP net income $36.6bn, up 32%; quarter ended 30 September; Amy Hood quote
2 Microsoft profits soar days after announcing thousands of layoffs BBC News, Oct 2026 About 60,000 workers offered a voluntary exit in Canada, India, the UK and the US; more than 220,000 employees
3 Here's what Microsoft's buyout offers actually include Business Insider, 26 Oct 2026 About 60,000 eligible; one week of base pay per six months at levels 64 and below, two weeks at levels 65 to 67; stock vesting and health cover continue; decision by early December
4 Microsoft expects 'very few people' to accept buyout, CFO says in internal memo Business Insider, 28 Oct 2026 Amy Hood: 'We expect very few people to select this offer'; spokesperson expects 3,000 or fewer to accept
5 Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to a quarter of its workforce KUOW, 26 Oct 2026 Spokesperson says AI is not driving the offer; eligibility set by each organisation
6 The pros and cons of offering voluntary buyouts to employees Business Insider, 27 Oct 2026 Laszlo Bock and Jay Zagorsky on buyouts compared with layoffs
7 ING shows continued commercial momentum in 3Q2026 and is well on track to deliver on 2026 outlook ING, 29 Oct 2026 Net result €1,850m, up 3.5%; €1.9bn distribution
8 ING launches buyback but flags job cuts and unit restructuring MarketScreener (Dow Jones), 29 Oct 2026 About 400 roles; €175m pretax provision in Q4; about €75m annual savings from 2028; €1.65bn buyback
9 Dropbox is laying off roughly 9% of its workforce. Read the memo. Business Insider, 28 Oct 2026 About 200 roles; 'Our business is profitable'; severance terms
10 Dropbox, Inc. Form 8-K, 28 October 2026 SEC filing, 28 Oct 2026 About 9% of workforce; cash cost $27m to $33m; expense $20m to $25m, substantially all in Q4; CTO leaves 18 November
11 Deloitte hikes pay for top boss while headcount shrinks City AM, 26 Oct 2026 Houston pay £7.1m against £4.9m; 93 times median UK pay, up from 65; voluntary redundancy in audit; average UK headcount 17,264 to 15,904
12 Deloitte boss gets 45% pay rise to £7.1m as UK workforce shrinks HRreview, 27 Oct 2026 45% rise; £1.3m one-off award; fall in average headcount is not the number made redundant
13 Deloitte UK publishes 2026 financial results Deloitte UK, 30 Sep 2026 Revenue £5.81bn, up 2%; distributable profit £899m, up 14%; bonus pool up 14%; voluntary redundancy affecting less than 3% of Audit and Assurance
14 Challenger Report August 2026 Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Sep 2026 Quarterly averages 1989 to 2025: Q1 207,756, Q2 181,307, Q3 176,025, Q4 187,106; monthly totals for 2025
15 Job Cuts Fall in September; Hiring Plans Up 3% Over 2025 On Weak Early Seasonal Hiring Challenger, Gray & Christmas, 1 Oct 2026 September 43,281; year to date 573,195, down 39%, and 550,185 excluding government, down 15%; AI the leading reason at 120,136; 'wait-and-see period'
16 2025 Year-End Challenger Report: Highest Q4 Layoffs Since 2008; Lowest YTD Hiring Since 2010 Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Jan 2026 Q4 2025 total 259,948; December 35,553; 'December is typically slow'
17 Last month's layoffs were the highest of any October in 22 years HR Dive, Nov 2025 October 2025 announced cuts 153,074, highest October since 2003; Andy Challenger comment on Q4
18 Last month was the worst January for job cut announcements since 2009 CNN Business via KRDO, 5 Feb 2026 January 2026 announced cuts 108,435; Andy Challenger on first-quarter pattern and plans set at end of 2025
19 Layoff Announcements: Do they Lead Actual Layoffs? Econbrowser (Menzie Chinn), 6 Feb 2026 Challenger announcements lead the official JOLTS layoffs series in a Granger causality test
20 Employee Layoffs And Earnings Management Hall, Stammerjohan and Cermignano, 2005 Firms make accounting choices that reduce reported income in the years they announce large layoffs
21 Write-Offs and Restructuring Charges: Evidence From SFAS No. 121 and EITF 94-3 Mandatory Disclosures Johann Comprix, PhD dissertation, 2000 Questionable restructuring charges appear widespread and are more likely after management changes and poor earnings
22 Comcast Flags $1B Q4 Charge For Layoffs, Restructuring In Connectivity Deadline, Oct 2026 $1bn fourth-quarter charge that includes layoffs
23 U.S. Employee Engagement Below 30% for First Time in 15 Years Gallup, 28 Oct 2026 29% engaged, 53% not engaged, 18% actively disengaged in Q3 2026; sample 21,648; 'cares about me' item 40% to 37%
24 Workers are getting a shrinking slice of America's economic pie CNN Business, 27 Oct 2026 Comments from Heather Long, Abhay Duggirala and Richard DiSalvo on the fall in labour share
25 Labor share at its lowest level, 52.8 percent, in second quarter 2026 BLS, 15 Sep 2026 Labour share 52.8% in Q2 2026, the lowest ever recorded; 54.7% a year earlier; 65.5% in 1947
26 Workers should be able to know colleagues' salaries, rights body says BBC News, 28 Oct 2026 EHRC proposals on pay questionnaires and a ban on asking about current salary; John Kirkpatrick quote
27 Is your EVP past its expiry date? HR Zone (David Macfarlane, TMP Worldwide), 27 Oct 2026 TMP Outthink Employer Brand Index: 43% of top scorers on values and proposition score low on content; 60% give no visible AI guidance; vendor index
28 Companies are not saving money with AI, Gartner finds HR Dive (Gartner HR research), Oct 2026 About three-quarters of board members expect savings; 97% cannot cut expenses through productivity alone; 38% over budget on AI; 85% plan to spend more; CV Viverito quote
29 A tech founder says he was 'pretty wrong' about lean teams in the AI era Business Insider, 28 Oct 2026 Chatbase has 40 employees and plans to double; Yasser Elsaid quote
30 The era of the Renaissance Developer is here, thanks to AI. Amazon wants software engineers to adapt. Business Insider, 27 Oct 2026 Terk Terkowitz memo: judge engineers on impact, not AI usage; warning on usage metrics as targets
31 Claude's new smart reports tell bosses when workers are 'off-topic' Mashable SEA, Oct 2026 Enterprise analytics reports, off by default; Anthropic says they should not be used for individual performance decisions
32 A Remote Employee Refused 160 Webcam Photos a Day. Her Employer Fired Her Inc., 7 Oct 2026 Lawsuit allegations: webcam photos about every three minutes, dismissal on 8 September; no ruling reported
33 42% of America's recent college grads are working jobs that don't need a degree. From Kathmandu to Paris, young people are taking to the streets Fortune, 26 Oct 2026 About 42% of recent graduates aged 22 to 27 underemployed in June; high of 43.4% in October 2020
34 The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Q2 2026 About 42% underemployment among recent graduates in Q2 2026; quarterly updates
35 Meet America's Dream Employers 2027 Forbes (Haniya Rae, with Statista), 27 Oct 2026 500-employer ranking from surveys of more than 10,000 students and 142,000 employees; top five
36 About 1 in 3 workers say they're faking their skills HR Dive (Addison Group survey), 29 Oct 2026 36% say they exaggerated knowledge, skills or experience; 1,000 US adults; vendor survey
37 In Early Morning Mail, Amazon Lays Off 250 Staff To 'Operate More Efficiently' NDTV (Reuters), 28 Oct 2026 No more than 250 roles in devices and services, mostly software development; Amazon gave no number
38 Laptops logged out, IDs deactivated: Innodata lays off 500 in India, more in Philippines India Today, 27 Oct 2026 Nearly 550 reported in India; company has not confirmed; Philippines cuts not quantified
39 ConocoPhillips announces another round of layoffs HCA Magazine, Oct 2026 Undisclosed number of employees and contractors in Canada, second year running
40 Marriott Confirms Corporate Job Cuts Skift, 28 Oct 2026 Corporate roles, number not disclosed; hotel staff not affected
41 Marriott undergoes organizational changes at customer engagement centers Hotel Dive, 17 Sep 2026 Confirms the 2024 layoff of more than 800 corporate employees
42 David Ellison's Skydance unveils employee buyout program, orders five-day return to office New York Post, 26 Oct 2026 Voluntary buyout programme with no amounts or numbers; five-day office week

Explore EBClub

Find upcoming events, meet the people shaping the community, join the conversation or learn how to support EBClub as a partner.

EBClub What you will find Explore
About EBClub Learn how EBClub connects employer branding practitioners through peer learning, discussion and shared experience. Explore EBClub
Events Browse upcoming EBClub gatherings, panels and practitioner-led sessions around the world. View events
People Meet the practitioners, ambassadors and contributors supporting the EBClub community. Meet the community
Join EBClub Connect with employer branding professionals sharing ideas, testing approaches and learning together. Join EBClub
Partner with EBClub Support practitioner-led events, industry discussion and wider access to employer branding knowledge. Explore partnerships