North Texas faced a wave of layoffs this year according to the Texas Workforce Commission.
As of December, employers across the Metroplex announced over 10,000 layoffs. The largest sectors impacted are in logistics, retail technology and corporate administrative operations, according to Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification, also known as WARN notices
Most recently, FedEx announced it will layoff 856 employees in the coming months at its Coppell distribution center. The company is closing the center in favor of a third-party partner.
These layoffs come on the back of FedEx’s announcement it would layoff over 500 more people at its Fort Worth distribution center in May.
Meanwhile, Dallas County saw the largest amount of layoffs at 4,721. The biggest of those was the Coppell FedEx closure, but layoffs at the Chewy Fulfillment Center and Southwest Airlines added a significant amount as well.
Chewy’s Fulfilment Center saw a reduction of 647 employees as of June. The center did not close, but the company told the TWC it would remain open in a significantly lower capacity.
In April, Southwest Airlines eliminated 626 positions at Love Field in order to “fund the right work, reduce duplicative efforts, and have a lean organizational structure that drives clarity and pace.”
The largest layoff in Tarrant County came after the City of Fort Worth ended its partnership with MedStar earlier this year. MedStar, a private ambulance company, ended its operations in the city. That prompted 589 layoffs in July.
However, according to MedStar, most employees were able to find similar roles with the city.
Most recently, the Sheraton Arlington Hotel, LeeMAH Electronics, S&S Activewear, CRST Expedited and Transportation Solutions announced their own layoffs totaling 231 employees to start off December.
Economic diversity
Economists like SMU's Dean Stansel say the region has historically withstood labor disruptions better than most major metros, thanks to rapid population growth and diverse business base.
"We live in a very large community and an economy that's growing and thriving," Stensel said. "Those same numbers somewhere else, somewhere smaller or somewhere that's shrinking, like some of the large cities in California and in the Northeast, it would be much more problematic."
He described the 10,000 layoffs as "not that alarming," given the region's size and economic diversity. Workers here, he said, often have more job opportunities close by compared places like San Francisco, Chicago, or New York.
"The bottom line is if you have a a locality that's centered around one industry, you are much more at risk of a severe recession there if that industry happens to be inordinately hit by by economic conditions," Stansel said.
Is automation contributing to North Texas layoffs?
Tarrant County College economics professor Timothy Park agrees the layoffs should also be viewed in the context of the region's enormous workforce. He said the Dallas-Fort Worth area supports millions of jobs, meaning even several thousand layoffs represent a small fraction of total employment.
Automation has long raised fears about job displacement, but historically many workers have been retrained into new roles overseeing or programming the very technologies that replaced older tasks.
"I believe that we’ve got a really good diversity of manufacturing and services in the DFW area," he said. "We’ve really been blessed in the last ten years or so not to have the big swings in our economy."
Modern automation, Park added, is more likely to create a gradual shift rather than a sudden loss of jobs in North Texas, especially in industries where human dexterity remains essential.
North Texas job market remains strong
According to the Texas Workforce Commission, Texas added 192,000 jobs from March 2024 to March 2025, outpacing national growth, and DFW alone gained more than 59,000 jobs in that same period.
Much of this momentum comes from expanding sectors like education and health services, which have grown nearly 2% since early 2024 and are expected to be among the nation's fastest-growing occupations in the coming decade.
Layoffs also don't always signal broader economic trouble. Stansel pointed to the FedEx closure in Coppell, which resulted from a single client's business decision rather than declining demand or weakening economic fundamentals.
Still, some pressures are real.
Stansel said rising tariffs, which act as taxes on businesses, may be contributing to closures or downsizing at certain companies and tariff-driven cost increases make it more expensive for both companies and workers to sustain normal operations.
And for employees facing layoffs, transitions can still be painful.
Park said retraining programs, like those found at community colleges, will play a growing role as the region adapts to both automation and long-term demographic challenges.
"The diversity [of businesses] also goes hand-in-hand with being able to train those individuals," said Park. "That’s what a community college is really good at. Preparing people to understand what they need to do to be successful in the future and to re-educate them if, God forbid, their company lays them off."
Park said that as population growth slows over the next decade, North Texas may face labor shortages, making skill-building even more critical.
For now, companies issuing layoffs say they are working to support affected employees.
Some companies told the state that some workers may qualify for reassignment or relocation.
KERA reached out to the Dallas Regional Chamber for comment but did not hear back.
However, at the Chamber’s Tomorrow Summit in November, organization leaders said they remain optimistic about the region’s economic outlook, highlighting DFW’s continued job growth, national relocation momentum, and strong pipeline of future opportunities.
The larger picture of DFW's job market, they say, still points to growth heading into 2026, even as the ground shifts beneath certain industries.
Emmanuel Rivas Valenzuela is KERA's breaking news reporter. Got a tip? Email Emmanuel at erivas@kera.org. KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members.
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