The Laid Off Trend Report Is Gonna Be Juicy (and Radicalizing)

Here's a snapshot.

A few months ago, I sent out a survey to get deeper insights into the community’s layoff experiences. I’ve received 856 responses so far. Digging through these responses has been a wild and clarifying ride.

I’ve heard from former workers at companies like…

Activision Blizzard, ConEdison, Target, Nike, WeightWatchers, IBM, Spotify, Pvolve, Airbnb, Capital One, Paramount, ROBINHOOD, TechCrunch, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, Travel + Leisure, Mic, Cash App, Tonal, NPR, Meta, Thrillist, LastPass, Tesla, GQ, Google, Disney, Samsung, HubSpot, Amazon, The Information, Microsoft, Universal Music Group, General Motors, Stripe, Intuit Mailchimp, LADbible, Zillow, Coinbase, Cisco, Adobe, Pixar Animation Studios, Docusign, Slack, CVS Caremark, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Etsy, Eddie Bauer, Deloitte, Morning Brew, Superhuman, Zendesk, NBCUniversal, Walmart, UPS, Nordstrom, and Tia.

…to name a few.

Dozens of people wrote notes to say that taking the survey was therapeutic; an outlet to reflect on everything that went down.

People were laid off while pregnant or on parental leave, on their birthday, on vacation, after a major surgery, while getting ready to leave for a bachelorette party, in their manager’s glass office where everyone could see what was happening, while taking PTO for their 40th birthday, on the first day back from their honeymoon, while in a field watching the solar eclipse, at a Starbucks on speaker phone, and while dropping their husband off for his vasectomy.

Most people were working remotely, laid off over Zoom (39.5%) or another video conferencing service (23%).

Here’s a snapshot:

Most people were laid off this year (63.8%) and in 2023 (26.3%). Only 2.6% of the respondents were laid off pre-pandemic, which I’m characterizing as March 2020.

This was the first time being laid off for 56.1% of respondents.

Most people (44.2%) worked at companies with 1,000 employees or more, followed by people at companies with 100 to 249 employees (13.9%).

Most people (43.9%) had worked at their company for 1-3 years before being laid off.

85.7% of people said they received severance. Of those, 44% received 1-3 months of severance and 17.4% received less than a month.

Rent and mortgage, and health insurance and other healthcare-related costs were the two most common financial concerns with the sudden loss of income.

Only 43.1% shared the layoff news publicly afterward. Of those, 66% shared on LinkedIn, 6.3% shared on Instagram, 2.1% shared on X, and 0.8% shared on TikTok.

75% of people who took the survey are still looking for full-time work. Of those, most people (32.4%) apply to 5-10 jobs a week followed closely by those applying to just a few a week (30.9%). A lot of people wrote about being ghosted by recruiters and having a hard time getting a first interview.

Most people (89.4%) said the layoff changed their relationship to work.

The Laid Off trend report will be sent out in multiple issues over the next few weeks.

There’s a lot to unpack.

Issue 01 will focus on how companies handled layoffs, the reasons they gave for them, and whether workers saw it coming.

Issue 02 will share where people were when they found out, the first person they told, and the first thing they did after receiving the news.

Issue 03 will go deeper on severance, financial concerns, and health insurance.

Issue 04 will detail how being laid off changed people’s relationship to work.

Issue 05 will talk about signs to look out for, advice, and nice things you can do for someone after a layoff (and what you shouldn’t do).

Plus, there will be some special issues in between on things like laid off group chats and cool things people created in the aftermath of their layoffs.

While Laid Off interviews and the Substack Chat will remain free, this is a reader-supported publication. I recommend upgrading for $5/month for the full experience into the juicy bits of the trend report issues.

Stay tuned.

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The first part of the series will drop within the week. Thank you to everyone for being vulnerable, brave, and cool, and sharing your layoff experiences.

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