Jim Cramer says he expects ‘many layoffs’ at companies after Christmas

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday predicted that more companies will trim their workforces after the holiday season.

“I’m sure there’ll be many layoffs after Christmas. I don’t want to finger-point at the retailers who’re most likely to be thrown into bankruptcy when the holidays are over, but I do want people to realize that, in a way, our current high-inflation economy is a high-quality problem,” he said.

A growing number of companies across industries have curtailed their head counts this year in an effort to control their expenses in a dipping economy. PepsiCo is one of the latest companies to downsize following cuts at food and beverage peers Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and rival Coca-Cola.

The rate of layoff announcements at U.S. employers last month was more than five times greater than the year prior, according to a Challenger, Gray & Christmas report. Tech companies, whose astronomic growth in recent years has been derailed by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes, led last month’s layoffs. 

Yet the total number of layoffs this year is the second lowest since the company started tracking the metrics in 1993. Cramer attributed the lack of job cuts to the fact that many companies have managed to stay afloat — a fact that could change next year.

“Even the most marginal, newly public enterprises just keep chugging along. You’d think some of these SPAC names would run out of money soon,” he said.