Data released by the human resources firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas indicates a dramatic spike in job cuts by U.S. companies in July, markedly exceeding the average for the same period since the onset of the pandemic. Notably, the technology sector was particularly hard-hit. The report uncovers that 62,075 employees were laid off by U.S. firms during July, marking a substantial increase of nearly 25,900 compared to the same month last year. This scale of layoffs ranks as the second highest for the month of July in the past decade, surpassed only by the peak witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.