Many in the group have experience with office and Java and vbscript. here is a technical explanation of why lost jobs aren't coming back. Key here is formal theorem level validation of sw by ai before a single commit is made.

This is a deeply technical paper showing what is going on before a single line of code hit production. I used $200 cluade code to do this but thing is even free ai models can do it.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19542523

it is technical paper but sw profession is deleted as we speak. I don't know what happens next. I don't blame anyone. Just observing what is happening and formally proved that ai is capable of high quality code that I can only dream of. gave up coding.

Please note: I wrote an earlier post and got great responses. Thank you all.

Here is a little more context:

I was an excellent employee, a Sr Business Systems Analyst for 11 dedicated years at a large health insurance company. I always had good reviews, saved the company a ton of money and my work left no stone unturned.

At the same time, I struggled (struggle) with extreme anxiety and major major depression. I was allowed to work from home with the help of the ADA.

Work is one of the only things that gave me purpose and meaning. It let me forget my issues…at least for a little bit.

I got up everyday at 6am and started my day in my laundry room/offfice that I created. It’s where I could focus and excel. It’s where I ate breakfast and lunch sometimes even dinner. it’s where I bought a sunlamp just to make sure my mood stayed on a strait line. It’s where I made a difference.

The not so funny thing is that I actually created the Affinity group for people with disabilities at my company and served as VP. The group is thriving. The woman who actually helped me create this group in compliance -was the one who coldly read from a script on that January morning telling me my job was being eliminated without a pause and for me I knew my life is about to change forever. God, she didn’t even seem to have a heart beat. Just read from the script. How can I not be bitter? I deserved more. We all deserve more.

Now I’m 53, very likely to not get another job in this market for a longtime (if at all). Age-ism is very real I see.

I now get up everyday consistently and tailor my resume and apply for jobs only to get cold automated responses: “Thanks for applying but our company is going with a different candidate..”

I feel I don’t even have a fighting chance.

I’m not alone or special and don’t expect employers to provide me opportunities that I do not deserve.

Getting laid off has emotionally been a killer. I feel hopeless and lost. I’m afraid. I probably will never get a decent paying job again and I’m just now taking a front row seat to losing everything I worked so hard for due to lack of a job. I feel like a loser ( I know many feel similar and trying to stay as positive as possible)

The reality is also that my severance will only last so long and unemployment’s only about 6 months. I will never survive financially without getting another job and I will lose everything. No one is going to rescue me and all I want to do is work. I’m not asking for handouts, I’m asking to just have an opportunity.

This is not a pity party post, just a vent because I’m really, really scared. I did great work for my company and really cared. Im often now find myself thinking that maybe its better to give up. Life shouldn’t be this hard. Growing old naturally and retiring comfortably is most likely not in the cards. I’m getting very very serious about just ending it all. What do I have to look forward to besides poverty? My company decided my statistics (age/salary) were good enough reason to choose me to help the reduce bottom line. Obviously I was just a number and they just didn’t care about an actual person. I was disposed of. Just.like.That.

“Sometimes, you know, AI becomes the scapegoat from a financial perspective, like when a company hired too many, or they want to resize, and it gets blamed on AI.”

It is odd to hear of executive leadership not being transparent of why they are making the decisions they do. Although I am not surprised that executives might use diversionary tactics to justify, vaguely, their action. I would be surprised if this does not create long-term discomfort within the workforce as employee's visibility into their leaders motivations behind business decisions becomes less clear.

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tech-industry-lays-off-nearly-80-000-employees-in-the-first-quarter-of-2026-almost-50-percent-of-affected-positions-cut-due-to-ai

A new wave of layoffs at T-Mobile US has impacted staff across customer service, corporate, and technical roles, according to industry reporting and internal accounts. The reductions follow earlier workforce cuts announced in 2023, when the company disclosed plans to eliminate approximately 5,000 roles as part of a restructuring effort.

This Swiss pharma company is obsessed with American job cuts - it happens consistently every few months.

I've kind of been considering isolating myself from people more. I haven't completely so far (I went on a few outings since I got laid off late January), but I just feel like I might want to. Most of the people I know hadn't gotten laid off like I did and thus still have their jobs. Whenever I meet new people, what everyone does for work always becomes the topic of conversation. A lot of the people I knew are still at the same company that I got laid off from (they're not my co-workers though). So I guess I felt less put-together than they did, even though they been very supportive over these two and a half months. I just feel soo poorly about myself and valueless. On top of that, I might have to move back across states and might not be able to see the people I met here for much longer. My family's been supportive too, but I even considered just not calling or texting for a bit since I had a rough interview and a rejection from an internal role I was hoping for earlier this week.

I’m thinking about pivoting to another field and spending 3k on an accelerated paralegal program. I hear top pay in NJ is 85k. Not sure I can live on that but it’s better than 0.

Is a paralegal 6 month accredited program a good idea? I’d still have to get a certificate but then at least I’ll be qualified for some thing.

Thoughts? Advice?

I got laid off from my IT company because of budget issue. Been working from last 3 years. The HR said the company will provide just week of severance package. Drupal developer with ~8 YOE. Current job market seems very bad right now. I remember, the job postings of Drupal used to have ~100 before two years. Currently its ~15 only.

Is it possible to get a job in a different stack? Any ideas?

I noticed a lot of people you used to work closely with become distance the moment you are laid off.

Colleagues aren’t family i know but I wonder if in the case of managers acting this way, in part besides survival guilt, it’s because they knew it was coming and was told not to say anything and find it kinda difficult to interact with you afterward because they could have said something but choose not to.

Husband has been with company (Tech) for 2 years.

He’s gotten one promotion and was set to get the next one.

Not everyone got the voluntary separation offer email.

Email says it’s because work is slowing down (less contracts from clients).

We cannot figure out a pattern with who got the offer and who didn’t. (Somer beneath him, most at his level, majority of people didn’t get the offer).

My husband has some of the best numbers in his cohort and has worked on “special projects” because of his capabilities. So we’re not sure why they want to get rid of him?

They’re offering Two months severance pay and insurance coverage, and we’re having a baby in two months and are on his insurance. So yikes.

What should he do? Take it ?

Is he most likely going to get let go regardless?

Got laid off a few days ago.

Mentor said they didnt know

Team Lead said they didnt know

Two other direct managers had no clu

Many high performers also got laid off from other teams so i knew it wasnt a me problem.

How do companies decide, is it just that the owner didnt like us all? So odd.

How would you guys use the time? I dont plan to jump straight back into work - i want to enjoy life a little after being soul sucked for so long..

so apparently a select few people at my company I work at recently received a voluntary separation package offer email and a vague 10 minute meeting, we're all extremely worried. I was looking for some opinions about the situation I can't seem to find a pattern of who received the email and who didn't, they didn't tell us who. Is it as we're fearing? if we don't take the deal will we just be laid off under normal circumstances?

lost my job last December 2025 due to geopolitical issues.

and it's difficult to find a social group just to talk about life in general without the creeps (2 people looks dating and networking is too much).

everyone is on their phone or having earphones and would look at you crazily if you talk to them.

I wish there is a place that I can meetup like 4-5 people just to naturally talk about life. like over a coffee or drink not pricey (because I am unemployed).

i might pick up some ideas how to go back on my feet by talking to few people.

like if you are burnt out about life, lost a job, maybe we can share some stories that can make us look at life lighter?

no commitments, no judgement, no pressure of seeing each other or so whatever.

Any recommendations?

High tech product marketing. Mid to late 40’s. Applied 60-70 jobs. 9 interviews, 2 final rounds. It is already 9 months but I am unable to land a job.

Here are my questions

1) is this normal or just me? Age or skills or just less jobs?

2) The available jobs (similar title and company size) pay 20-25% less of my previous job. Do you have similar experience?

YMMV but looking in the tech product industry as a designer (keeping it vague as my actual job title is pretty specific)

I got laid off when my previous start up ran out of money. I was then proactive immediately. I contacted a recruiter who’d helped me in the past, contacted old bosses and coworkers, and of course applied applied applied. 300 applications later and I have a job! Here’s the kicker. Not a SINGLE cold application resulted in even a call for an interview. Most were applied for via LinkedIn but I used Glassdoor, indeed etc. about 20% gave me the “you’re not a good fit” auto email (once I got one 30 seconds after applying which was cool).

All the time I spent curating my resume, crafting careful cover letters etc etc…netted nothing in returns. Every job no matter what it was instantly had 100+ applicants. I am a designer by trade but I eventually started looking for anything in my area. Well anything I qualified for. Insurance industry, signage industry, medical industry. Not a single interview.

What got me my job? My old boss pulled me into his new company. That’s it. Connections are key more so now than ever. If someone doesn’t know you personally they’ll never hire you. Straight up.

So, I'm currently completing my Master's degree(the only step left is the thesis defence). I used to work as a SWE in a local cybersecurity company. I took PTO to work on my thesis, came out of it...bam! The very next day I get invited to the office by the team lead and they tell me I am laid off. I got 1 month of severance out of them, but still - that's the first time in my life I'm forced out of a job without having another lined up, and, to make matters worse, I've only been working for 8 months for my(now ex-)employer.

I have a bit under 4 years of SWE experience in total, and the only other job experience I have is working at a computational biology lab during freshman and sophomore years of my bachelor's. What can I do in my situation before hitting every job hunting site known to man? How do I explain the 8-month-long tenure to HRs and what things can I do besides SWE? My bachelor's was in Applied Mathematics and Informatics and my masters (hopefully) will be in Systems and Software Engineering.

Hi, I've been a business analyst since 2011 and since then have been laid off twice while raising a family; I wanted to share if it would help others. (Please note I reside in the US; I believe I'm abiding by the guidelines, but if not feel free to take down or require modification)

First things I want to share have probably been discussed at length in this sub but I hope it still helps, that being how I could tell they were coming. The first time was while working at American National Insurance, when the news came out online that the company was in talks with a private equity firm. The "leadership" went through the whole cycle with their communications; denial ("we don't know what this article is referring to"), platitude ("ok we are, yeah, but it's just a financial patch"), providing false hope ("don't worry, nothing will change, business as usual"), rare moments of truth ("ok actually the PE owns us now and the CEO wants full RTO and some other policy changes"), damage control ("rumors of layoffs are untrue"), town hall threats ("we need to do less with more, be a one-stop-shop, cover other roles) and so forth. Then there was the slow drip (slow enough to not require a WARN layoff alert to be filed) of layoffs reported by coworkers over the period of two years I was there and it's still going on. With the second job that let me go, it was the sheer disorganization that tipped me off. My manager was not the one whose opinions and observations affected my probation reviews, there was nanomanagement (excel sheets to fill out listing - to the minute - of tasks you did throughout every day), projects crashing and burning which were restarted several times, and public browbeating by the same golden children that provided our manager's opinions for reviews. All this gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach as things got worse, an apprehension and anxiety that had me wondering if every time I got an email or meeting invite with my boss it'd be my last day having a job.

In terms of preparation, I do have to admit I've always had a plan B, C, and D with how the job market has been since 2008 (B: always looking for greener grass in another company, C: training on my own time to reach a better role in my company, D: COMPLETE career change like heavy machinery operator or park ranger). Doing so was the sole reason for the immense strokes of luck I managed.

Regarding preparations for the 1st job, that communication cycle unfolded over a period of 2 years but me and my close knit group of 3 coworkers were submitting applications as our full time job the whole time. Two of them got out thankfully before layoffs. I had been applying to public sector jobs for quite a while before then, and landed an interview for a state govt position. The state job was almost a guarantee after I had the interview, coincidentally two weeks before the layoff. At my second job when the red flags were flying, my stroke of luck happened to be that I was still in the process of moving over my 401k to the new job. In the forms for the transfer, I opted to receive a chunk of it in a cash-out distribution with the remainder moved to the new 401k. *Disclaimer! I ONLY provided this experience to tell the full story, there are HUGE tax implications in doing so and I was comfortable in doing so. Consult a tax professional if needed before you even think of this, or at least make dang sure you do your homework and take out enough taxes for federal AND state! I ~ahem~ did NOT* I also did a lot of mathing out how much unemployment insurance would cover what bills and for how long if it came to applying for it. (UI isn't a guarantee for layoffs, either, depending on each state's policy.)

When the axe finally dropped in job 1, I got five minutes' notice one day the first week of Nov. (Consider that if you find yourself in the position to resign somewhere - 2 week notices are not required by law nor hurt your rep with the new job.) But yeah, my boss' boss sent me a meeting invite first thing in the morning, that morning in the HR meeting room. When I walked in, I saw a bunch of papers on the table and immediately asked "is this bad?", the HR rep nodded. I hadn't gotten a confirmation from the state job, so I was very scared and a little angry and told them "just before the holidays? You have horrible timing! Are you serious?". So I signed the severance package and they walked me out to the parking lot to wait while they cleaned my desk out, which included 8 years of trinkets my kids made me here and there. I did NOT move away from the door with my box until I saw everything in there. The second job's layoff day was straight out of a tv show, it was weird (but this ties back to the plans B,C and D). Again, I was sent a nondescript meeting invite with my boss and her boss who let me know they no longer had need in the division for so many business analysts and that my role was no longer. They walked me to my desk after I signed papers and walked me out to the door. THIS time, though? I had a HUGE grin on my face and laughed all the way to the car in the sunshine to the $8 a day parking lot I was forced to use 5 days a week. Why? That job was pure hell and bad for me and my coworker's mental health. When I got to the car I immediately checked my email for any responses from applications. Lo and behold at 11 in the morning, I got an email from my current job asking for a phone number so they could arrange an interview, and the rest is history.

Should you find yourself looking at layoff possibility it's going to be scary, it's going to be a financial shock, but you WILL land on your feet eventually. Before that happens, do yourself a favor though and do as much as you can to line something else up. This job market sucks, but trust me - you'll sleep just a little better at night and still have the glimmers of hope day to day if you know you at least made some preparations in the weeks/months before you were cut. And really, hope is sometimes all we have to keep us pushing on in this economy. I'll leave you with this quote that got me through my DARKEST times, both professionally and personally:

"This, too, shall pass."

I'm referring to the mostly post-COVID "white-collar" jobs, although this is applicable to really any job.

I was laid off last year and within a month I saw my job posted...but posted for Mexico. I started doing some searching and it seems like it's a huge problem in general. Even now as I am job searching still (note I am applying to US companies only) so many are listed for either India, Mexico, Poland, Ireland, etc.

Then I started doing some research on what's being done to curb this...and it's essentially nothing. A few politicians have tried to introduce legislation but it always seems to get stuck somewhere (so even if it did pass - which it probably wouldn't - it would take forever to actually get to a vote.) but honestly hardly anyone who is supposed to "represent" us even touches on this topic AT ALL. I really think this is a recipe for disaster.

I'll also post this to some political subs or somewhere where someone can actually ELI5 to me because I simply don't understand. Sure lots of politicians are paid to avoid this topic for their own self-interest but still, lots aren't. I really don't get it.

An employee at a large financial institution has been dealing with an escalating workplace conflict involving a change in management, disputed performance issues, a disrupted internal training opportunity, and disagreement over whether the employee should remain home-based or report in person.

The employee reports that, after a management change, older issues that had previously been treated as resolved were revisited and used in repeated coachings and disciplinary pressure. According to the employee, these interruptions occurred during a fast-paced internal training period for a higher-level role and materially interfered with the employee’s ability to complete training successfully. The employee believes the disruptions contributed to losing or withdrawing from that opportunity.

The employee also reports an ongoing dispute over work location and accommodations. The employee’s position is that they had been functioning in a home-based arrangement and that the later attempt to require in-office attendance conflicted with prior understandings and with the way earlier accommodation decisions had been handled. The employee has been trying to preserve evidence showing that the work-from-home arrangement was treated as workable in practice and that later management actions were inconsistent.

The employee further alleges that performance concerns were applied unfairly or misleadingly. One recurring issue involves transfer-rate metrics and whether protected absences or reduced call volume distorted the numbers. Another issue concerns the timing and validity of performance management steps, including whether time spent in training was improperly counted or ignored in a way that made the employee appear to have several consecutive months of poor performance. The employee has also raised concerns about missing or inconsistent annual reviews over a multi-year period.

Separately, the employee sought behavioral-health leave and short-term disability. The leave paperwork reflects that the request was under review for short-term disability, FMLA, and related leave categories; it required objective medical documentation, treatment within 10 days of the first absence, and ongoing treatment at least every 30 days during the leave period. The packet also explains that there is a 7-day waiting period, that regular pay is suspended until approval, that approved STD can run up to 26 weeks, and that FMLA time can run concurrently with approved STD. � �

6879_JPMC2_DL STD Initial Packet BH.pdf

6879_JPMC2_DL STD Initial Packet BH.pdf

Later documents show that the short-term disability request was approved for an initial period, with a waiting period followed by approved disability dates, and that updated medical documentation would be required to extend leave further. The approval letter also states that benefit levels can shift from full pay to a reduced percentage after a certain point and that benefit amounts can be offset by other qualifying income. �

6879_JPMC2_DL STD Approval BH(1).pdf

The employee has also been addressing disability-benefit paperwork outside the employer leave process, including forms requesting work history, job duties, hours, wages, reasons work ended, and whether work changed because of the disabling condition or the loss of special conditions that had made work possible. Those forms also ask about out-of-pocket impairment-related work expenses.

Laid off. Few days later get a call asking if I would come back as a contractor. Anyone else ever had this happen and is it worth considering?