(Bloomberg) -- Layoffs announced by US employers quintupled in February from a year earlier and were the largest at the start of any year since 2009, led by technology companies.

There were 77,770 job cuts announced last month, up from 15,245 in February 2022, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. That brought the two-month total to 180,713 jobs, the most for any January-February period since 2009, the outplacement firm said Thursday.

Job cuts remain much lower overall than they were throughout 2020 when the pandemic struck.

Tech companies have accounted for about a third of the announced layoffs so far this year, according to Challenger’s tally.

A separate report Thursday showed applications for unemployment benefits last week rose to the highest since December, driven by spikes in California and New York and suggesting some softening in what’s still a tight labor market.

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