America’s Great Layoff Paradox: Growth at the Top, Anxiety Below
The American economy looks strong on paper, yet companies are cutting jobs at the fastest pace in years. This growing disconnect is the new layoff paradox, where profits rise while workers lose their place in the system.
America keeps insisting the economy is strong. Growth is up. Markets are calm. Wall Street is happy again.
Yet 2025 has become the year of the largest job cuts since the financial crisis. UPS removed forty eight thousand workers. Amazon is preparing to erase up to thirty thousand corporate roles. Intel, Verizon, Accenture, Ford, Target, Microsoft, GM… the list reads like a map of the entire American economy.
This is the American layoff paradox.
A country where prosperity climbs while job security collapses.
A system that expands without its people.
These layoffs are not coming from weak companies. They are coming from profitable ones. Tech firms that once bragged about unlimited growth are now quietly shrinking their workforces. Logistics giants are trimming thousands to survive automation. AI is replacing mid-level talent faster than leaders admit. The middle class is watching its foundation crumble, not because the economy is failing, but because the economy is evolving away from them.
We like to imagine recessions as storms that come and go.
But this feels different.
Cold. Mechanical. Intentional.
If America can grow while cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs, what does that say about the future of work. About stability. About dignity. And what happens when this model spreads across the rest of the world.
Full analysis here:
https://munaeem.com/2025/12/07/american-layoff-paradox-booming-economy/
