U.S.-based companies announced 90,309 planned job reductions in March, increasing 7% from the prior month as employers responded to an economy delivering mixed signals affecting profits and demand for goods and services.

Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said the March tally was the highest monthly total since 102,943 positions were trimmed in January 2023. Planned cuts totaled 257,254 for the first quarter of 2024, down 5% from the year-earlier quarter but 120% higher than the fourth quarter of 2023.

“Layoffs certainly ticked up to round out the first quarter, though below last year’s levels,” Senior Vice President Andrew Challenger said in a statement Thursday. “Many companies appear to be reverting to a ‘do more with less’ approach.”

Technology continues to lead all industries for job cuts in 2024 at 42,442, after reductions were announced by firms including Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco and the parent firms of Google and Facebook. Challenger noted several other industries are trimming more positions than they did a year ago, including energy and industrial manufacturing.

The outplacement firm reported that the government category led for March job cuts at 36,044, including 10,000 reductions in the Veterans Affairs department and 24,000 cuts to the U.S. Army. This marked the highest monthly total for government since the 54,182 reductions in September 2011.

Government was followed in March by technology with 14,224 reductions and retail with 5,397. Other notable March cuts were announced in education at 3,464, healthcare at 3,405, entertainment at 3,030 and media at 2,246. 

Disney this week survived a serious proxy challenge after activist investors pushed for changes including a proposal to place the theme park and media giant’s property holdings into a real estate investment trust.

Preliminary results showed 94% of Disney shareholders voted to reelect the company’s full 12-member board of directors, backing CEO Robert Iger in fending off challenges from Trian Partners and Blackwells Capital. Both nominated their own slates of new directors, and analysts said a victory by either could have significantly altered Iger’s future decision-making and succession plans.

Trian Partners, led by Nelson Peltz, had called for changes including speeding up the CEO succession process, bringing executive pay more in line with company performance, and revising streaming profit margin targets to levels closer to rival Netflix.

Blackwells Capital, led by Jason Aintabi, sought similar shifts and also called on Disney to spin off its owned properties into a separate REIT, which it could then leverage for cash. Disney owns real estate including offices, production studios, hotels, retail centers and the land that holds its global theme parks. The company has announced plans to invest $60 billion in park and cruise-related developments over the next decade.

In a statement issued after the company’s annual shareholder meeting, Iger said Disney leaders were “eager to focus 100% of our attention” on priorities including growing stock value “with the distracting proxy contest now behind us.” Board Chairman Mark Parker joined Iger in thanking shareholders for their confidence in current leadership “particularly during this period of great change in the broader entertainment industry.” 

Initial U.S. claims for unemployment insurance totaled 221,000 for the week ended March 30, rising 9,000 from the prior week’s revised level after posting declines for much of the past month, the Labor Department reported.

The four-week moving average for initial claims was 214,250, rising 2,750 from the previous week as weekly claims generally have hovered between 200,000 and 250,000 for most of the past year, low by historical standards.

Continued claims in all programs, tracked on a more delayed basis, totaled about 2 million for the week ended March 16, up 1,035 from the prior week and also higher than the 1.9 million for the comparable week of 2023.

Analysts at Oxford Economics said data showed initial claims reaching their highest level since late January but remaining below levels that would signal a significant weakening of labor conditions. Oxford Lead US Economist Nancy Vanden Houten said continued claims have edged lower since mid-March, aided in part by a slowdown in California after that state’s claims jumped earlier in the month.