Uncertainty at Work

The first month of this year saw U.S. employers cut loose 108,435 workers, a 118% increase over the year earlier and the highest number of January job cuts in 15 years, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas a specialty outplacement/executive coaching group. That number is roughly the same as the population of Clearwater, FL. If the firings continue at that pace through February, then the total would be comparable to Birmingham, AL. For a third month, Pittsburgh.

The reality of job cuts is more compelling as the numbers rise, but each one puts a future at risk, or at least imposes uncertainty. For many of these people, a part of life is ending.

The specialists’ evaluation of the January results attributed the job losses to businesses restructuring, lost contracts, and generalized economic “uncertainty”. Uncertainty is contagious in these matters.

The job cuts were particularly concentrated in the transportation and technology sectors, the analysts’ report. But the matter of lost jobs picked up a few days’ worth of social-media heat when the Washington Post let go 300 people, one third of its workforce. Those workers had the means to amplify their misery to a much wider audience, and to curse the billionaire who owns the paper. The details vary, but the uncertain consequences ahead for the newspaper workers is no different than it is for workers at a condemned foundry or fabricator, or machine shop.  

I lived my formative years in the industrial Midwest when the oil shock and foreign imports brought chronic misery to U.S. automakers and steelmakers and their suppliers. My work has familiarized me more with basic manufacturing in the U.S., and the precarious nature of employment at operations that are suppliers to larger businesses, and subordinate to changing consumer tastes, advancing regulatory standards, aggressive global competitors, and above all to the lenders providing capital to keep the lights on.

Job losses are rarely attributable to just one of these factors; they tend to happen when all of the factors begin to weigh against the enterprise meeting standards set in quarterly or annual forecasts. That’s when uncertainty grows. When a job is gone, it’s gone. All of us are on the clock in that way.

The parallel of employment to mortality is quite real, but I suspect most people do not dwell on it until the fateful moment when an end-date is announced. Saints and mystics may approach their days that way, but they sacrifice much for that detachment from the world’s priorities. Some people surely believe they can conquer the world, but most of us strive merely for contentment within it. We are uncomfortable with uncertainty too.

What I find difficult to understand is why - if so many workers are undone by the news of their job ending - are so many jobs chronically unfilled? Across the basic manufacturing sector employers report their difficulty finding reliable, skilled workers, and retaining them once they’re brought on. In FM&T’s 2026 Business Outlook survey, 56.2% of all metalcasting industry respondents indicated that labor shortages were a problem during 2025 - and 34.8% reported their operations suffered from a shortage of skilled workers. The lack of capable workers has been a chronic concern across manufacturing sectors for more than a decade.

There are select cases of new plant openings, and various states and cities work to incentivize more of those. The argument that U.S. tariffs will foster conditions for even more is a present-day consequence of decades of spirit-sapping job losses in industrial America. Both efforts are meant to provide certainty.

And still the evidence shows us there are jobs in foundries, machine shops, etc., that cannot be filled.

Workers know how much they rely on their income and benefits, but it’s fair to say that most are as detached from the consequences of their work as they accuse employers of being once the work is gone. What do employers want that workers do not wish to give them? What do workers want that employers seem unable to address?

Resolving the uncertainties for each side - granting more flexibility and responsiveness to help employers adapt to changing business conditions, extending greater stability and autonomy to workers - may help each side of the equation plan their lives together more fruitfully. It may be that there are some risks they’re willing to bear together.