Got laid off this morning from a job I was at for a little over 3 years, and this evening come across a post from the CEO on Linkedin bragging about company profits.

These companies don't care about any of us.

Now I have to spend months, if not a year or more, finding a new company that won't care about me either.

It's exhausting.

All major MNC's & MAANG companies' revenue and stock prices are at an all-time high, and even startups are securing funding faster than ever. AI still isn't in a position to take jobs, so why are all major companies laying off employees and why is so hard to secure a job?

Out of nowhere, I got a calendar invite from HR at 12:15 PM for a Teams meeting at 1:30 PM. No context, no details, just titled “Call”!

I had a sinking feeling.

The meeting began and within minutes, they told me they were “restructuring” and my role was no longer needed.

Just like that.

After 10 years of building my expertise in consumer and marketing insights and spending the last 1.5 years giving my all to this organisation I was being asked to put in my papers.

This is the first time in my career I’ve faced something like this. I’m still trying to process it.

There’s a mix of shock, stress and a bit of fear about what’s next.

Feeling devastated! I was laid off from work today. They terminated me without cause, and apparently, they can do that if they pay in lieu of notice. I'm just upset with the way they delivered the news; I wasn't even allowed to pack my own stuff. The director of my team, who I thought had a fun personality, was emotionless—like a robot. I expected him to show some compassion when delivering news like this. I didn’t even get to save my work; he told me to email my design manager about it. I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone and was immediately escorted out of the building. This is a 100-employee company—small enough that everyone knows each other well. I worked there for two years, and this is how they treat you when they no longer need you.

Is this normal practice when people get laid off? I haven’t been laid off before, so this type of behavior is baffling to me, as if I were some criminal. I wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye to my coworkers

Found out this morning when HR joined a meeting that I thought was just going to be a catch up with my manager and I... I’m remote so I didn’t get to say goodbye to anyone, just got immediately locked out of everything which really hurt, ngl.

I feel like this couldn’t have happened at a worse time. The job market is absolutely terrible right now and my severance package will only last me a month and a half so I’m honestly terrified. If anyone is dealing with the same right now any advice is welcome.

I'm honestly still in shock and processing it all. Feeling a form of survivorship bias. Like why was I one of the two chosen to stay while others were let go?

We were a close group of 10. 8, including my direct boss, were let go. No goodbyes, no contact, nothing. Just a quick 1 on 1 meeting, pack up your stuff and go. Just the other day we had a planning session on what we were all going to work on the next couple of months.

I can't even begin to imagine what they are going through on a personal level:

• My boss just had two kids

• One of my coworkers recently bought a HOUSE and MOVED for this job

• Another just got married

• One has a sick family member

Meanwhile there's me. A single guy with none of those things who is staying.

I slack off, do the bare minimum, always take an hour+ for lunch, show up 1/2 days in the office when I feel like it (3 days min required), and I never show up on time.

Crazy how everything unfolded today. First time having stress levels this high at work. Them keeping me makes me FEEL like I owe them something... but I still plan on leaving - which makes me feel worse because maybe one of them could have stayed over me? Idk what to do at this point.

Bruh I just saw people from Paramount, Amazon and Target getting laid off WTF? Can someone tell me if there's any other companies in this list? Ik meta laid off like a few before a week or so.

I kind of saw the signs when the manager started diverting my duties to others and avoided talking to me. It was pretty much confirmed when they didn't put my name as point of contact for our alarm permit. I was told we had poor sales and they could no longer afford me. I tried my best to keep myself cool and not make a fuss and just grabbed my things and walked out.

I just finished applying for unemployment and hope they approve it. I tried to look up job search tips but nothing is getting into my head right now. My tears are forming as I type this so it looks like my emotions have finally caught up. I want to cry my hearts out but I don't want to let my brother see or hear it. I don't want to tell anyone because they'll just ask me what I'm doing to find a new job. I know what I should be doing but I can't bring myself to do anything right now.

They said they couldn't afford me, but I know that's not really what's up. Two years ago we lost a department manager and the store manager. I was handling pretty much everything except for hiring and scheduling until they found a new manager. But we were still without a dept manager so the new manager took that role while I did what I had been doing. The new manager was trying to hand some of his job on me but I told him I couldn't do both after trying it for a month. They eventually brought back a former employee who is the brother of a manager at HQ and was fired previously for missing too many days work.

The place has been losing sales for 8 years so it's only a matter of when the owner decides it's no longer worth paying out of his pocket to keep the place up. It's crazy that I first got hired to do IT for the store, then I ended up learning to code on my own to generate and e-mail orders from a spreadsheet, which they still use to this day.

I have 9k in savings which isn't much. I also have 13k in 401k in case things really go south. For now I just want to feel like shit and maybe relax for a bit because I feel like a mess right now.

TLDR: I got laid off a week from Christmas and it sucks

I don't know where to rant about this so as the title says...

I got laid off today. Not a shock, a private equity bought us out earlier this year, and I knew the axe was coming. They made massive cuts in January this year and I figured I’d be gone next year. Turns out they didn’t wait that long.

This is my 4th layoff in a 20-year career. At this point, I’m numb to it and have learnt to prepare for this kinda shit. I’ve got savings to keep me afloat, but the job hunt has been brutal. I’ve spent the last six months applying non-stop, knowing this was coming and nothing but rejection after rejection. Maybe the market picks up next year, maybe it doesn’t. The only upside: all those interviews were practice, so at least I’m sharper for the next round.

Right now, I need to breathe and take a vacation. Years of endless overtime, stolen weekends, and “working vacations” burned me out to the core. To anyone else in this mess or in a similar situation: brace yourself, save every damn penny, and stop believing in job security, it doesn’t exist..

Edit update: thanks everyone for your words of encouragement. I have just booked a flight for vacation + canceled a bunch of subscriptions I don't need to cut down on my expenses + got my working docs and notes ready for more job applications while i travel. I hope this crappy situation doesn't last for more than 6 months!

Hey all,

About a month or so ago my company decided to lay off 2/3 of our team (mostly contractors). The people they're laying off are responsible for maintaining our IT infrastructure and applications in our department. The people who are staying were responsible for developing new solutions to save the company money, but have little background in these legacy often extremely complicated tools, but are now tasked with taking over said support. Management knows that this was a catastrophic decision, but higher ups are demanding it anyway. Now I'm seeing these layoffs everywhere. The people we laid off have been with us for years (some for as long as a decade). Feels like the 2008 apocalypse all over again.

Why is this so severe and widespread?

It finally happened after a long career in technology. I got the last minute meeting notice with the big boss and was given my last rites and sent packing. My company is offshoring everyone in technology so it’s a matter of when, not if you got axed.

I’m going to take some time and let it sink in, but I’m shocked and pissed off right now. The job market sucks and being a more senior prospect is going to make things harder!!

I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.

Quick Edit: thank you for all the comments, advice, stories, and encouragement! I’m going to try to respond to more comments after I find my glue.

I was laid off roughly a week ago when my tech company laid off about 15% of its staff—largely very hard-working and important employees who had spent countless hours of overtime supporting the biz. This was after the first round of layoffs in October which also affected about 15% of the company.

Not asking for advice—just kinda pissed and wondering who else this has happened to. Laying people off 2 weeks before Christmas is some legit cartoon villain levels of business ethics.

Joined the club today. They exclusively laid off US-based employees in every single affected team, not a single non-US employee was let go. At the company meeting leadership explained that they do restructuring to “improve cashflow” and “optimize resources” - as in we pay y’all filthy Americans too much.

That shit should be illegal.