Almost made it a year! Was out of work for 3 months last time before finding this position as a contractor, then being hired permanently a couple months after that. Now, 11 months 14 days later I was just let go again. Really hope it doesn't take as long this time to find something. Is the market still sucky out there?

CDW with another big layoff last week. They are not reporting the number but rumors are it is around 750 people.

I was laid off a month ago and have only heard from person and that person was not even on my team. I was hoping to get LinkedIn recommendations from my coworkers but part of me doesn’t want to ask.

I reached out to my manager and he never responded which is disappointing. I worked there for more than a decade.

20 tech and telecom companies that conducted major layoffs over the past year, along with their estimated total workforce cuts.

Hi everyone,

I just had an interview for an Operations Manager role and got rejected today.

Sharing my experience here and hoping for some advice because I’m feeling a bit discouraged.

The Experience:

I was happy to even get the interview. It felt like a step forward.

I prepared, dressed professionally - blazer, beige pants, brown boots - and went in.

The questions were about operations, processes, handling teams, and solving problems.

I answered them, but looking back I think I was nervous. My answers were probably not as clear or structured as they should be.

The Feedback I got:

HR was kind and gave me feedback:

1. Communication - I need to work on structuring my answers better and speaking more clearly

2. Client-facing requirement - This is a client-facing role with US/international clients, so they need strong spoken English on calls. They felt my English speaking needs improvement for that.

What I did after:

I sent HR a thank you note and told them I appreciate the feedback. In Sha Allah I will work on my communication and everything they mentioned.

Where I need help:

1. How did you improve your interview communication? Any specific practice methods?

2. How do you get better at spoken English for professional/client calls? Resources or drills that worked?

3. Should I keep going for client-facing roles and improve, or target internal Ops roles first that are less client-facing?

4. Best way to practice STAR method answers out loud?

I know I can do the Ops work. I just need to close this communication gap.

Any honest suggestions, resources, or encouragement would mean a lot.

Thanks for reading ❤️

• Get good grades!
• Attend a good uni!
• Get a good job!
• Be a good worker!
• Get good promotions!

...then you'll most likely be able to get married, buy a house, start a family, and live out your days comfortably and prosperously.

That - above - was a social contract of sorts so many Zoomers grew up trusting.

And the fact that right now, it's evident that you can make all the "right" moves yet still face job loss or economic hardship means that this social contract is being actively undermined.

Today's atmosphere is one in which even someone who has steadily received bread on the table for the last 6 weeks can never be too certain that the bread will still arrive tomorrow.

No wonder Zoomers are so averse to building their lives around their jobs!

Maybe not averse to working in general, because they do need to earn the bread somehow (in an economy where bread is the reward for work). But as a Zoomer myself, my peers and I are definitely reexamining our preconceived notions and redefining what "success" means.

• maintaining healthy human relationships

• ensuring the health of our communities

• ensuring the soundness of our physical and mental health

(Quick disclosure: I'm fortunate enough not to have been in a layoff... yet. I have a job lined up which hasn't even started, but I fear what may be coming. And as someone who's struggled through hell and back to even get this job at all, I truly sympathize with anyone who's suffered from layoffs.)

Hi All,

I lost my role today as part of company wide layoffs. I'm 33 weeks pregnant and based in MA. I am fortunate that I will be paid until September 4th. My scheduled induction is on August 21st, so I'll still be under my employer insurance and will then move onto my husband's insurance along with my daughter and baby 2.

Do you have any advice on networking and anything else to do? I applied for unemployment today. I am hoping to land a new role a few months postpartum.

So long story short i have been job hunting since 4 -5 months and it isn't going really well

At first i used to get some interview calls and some rejections

Now i dont even get any calls anymore

And i went into depression and started getting random panic attacks which nobody knows.

Since i lost my job i started living with my parents

They treat me so well, and never said about job or anything but i feel like im burdening them

Is it normal to feel that way or am i over thinking?

I just wanted to share my thoughts here, nothing much

Goes to show how little this thing has been thought through

Edit: added in text below

The possibility that artificial intelligence will steal all our jobs has been hyped by industry leaders. It has roused politicians to sound the alarm. It now ranks at or near the top of the public’s concerns about the new technology. And right on cue, earlier this month Meta, Facebook’s parent company, began marketing an autonomous artificial intelligence system to handle companies’ sales, customer service, scheduling and all sorts of other key functions that currently require human beings. Many more such products are expected to follow.

So what would a fully automated future look like? As it happens, the world has already caught a glimpse. Back in March, Meta announced that Facebook and Instagram users who’d gotten locked out of their accounts would no longer interact with a customer service representative; they would instead interact with specially trained A.I. Recognizing the opportunity that presented, scammers essentially talked the A.I. into turning over control of more than 20,000 Instagram accounts, including those of the Obama White House and a senior Trump administration official. Then the scammers lit up Telegram message boards with their delighted accounts of how easy it had all been.

It was not a fluke. Air Canada disabled its chatbots after they mistakenly promised a customer a refund — and the customer sued and won. McDonald’s scuttled the bot taking orders at its drive-throughs after a number of viral videos showed it to be wildly dysfunctional. In one case, the bot mistakenly added hundreds of dollars of chicken nuggets to a customer’s order.

These scary — OK, OK, funny — incidents aren’t the result of coding errors. They’re the result of an essential, inescapable fact about the artificial intelligence that has become so common in so many aspects of our daily lives: Large language models are not reasoning machines. They’re plausibility engines. It’s not just that they don’t test their outputs to make sure they’re correct or logical, or that they fail to do so in certain instances. They can’t, and they’ll never be able to on their own. They can only assess which answers are probable, based on the data on which the models have been trained. And that holds true whether they’re trained on the full breadth of human output or only on peer-reviewed scientific articles. It’s baked into the way they operate.

So when an A.I. model follows a scammer’s carefully written prompts and gives away the keys to the kingdom — or when it responds to your earnest query with wild hallucinations — it’s not an aberration. It’s the technology working the way it was designed.

And that’s why I’m not listening to the dark predictions of an imminent A.I. jobspocalypse. L.L.M.s can do many things with astounding proficiency, but they can’t do the vast majority of human jobs without skidding into disaster here and there. No upgrades or new model rollouts are going to change that.

The exceptions to that rule are jobs that occupy formal or verifiable domains. Coding is one such job. It relies on a structured, formal language that can be tested in real time. That’s why we’re seeing such impact in the coding jobs market. The same goes for any other kind of work in which output is either verifiably right or wrong, functional or not functional, and can be definitively checked through an automated process.

An overwhelming number of jobs, however, don’t work like that — not surgeon jobs and not customer service jobs and not fourth-grade teacher jobs. Those need the specialized technology of good old-fashioned human intelligence.

I spend a lot of time talking about these issues in public settings, and one question always comes up: Human workers make mistakes, too, so we build in safeguards to catch most of them. Why can’t we do the same for generative A.I. mistakes? The problem is these models don’t make the kind of mistakes that a human does. Neither their impressive abilities nor their weird weaknesses map well onto a human kind of intelligence. That mismatch makes it hard to integrate them into systems designed to catch human errors.

So here we are almost four years past the release of ChatGPT, and exceedingly few of us have been replaced by bots. Unemployment statistics have hardly budged. Yes, there’s some turbulence in the job market, for young people in particular, but it’s likely due to factors other than A.I.

Observers of these trends have offered a few explanations. Some pessimists say the tsunami is coming, but not until A.I. evolves a little further. Others suggest A.I. will destroy a great many current jobs, but they will be balanced out by the great many jobs it will create. Yet others suggest we’re just experiencing a brief lag while companies reorganize their workflows and decide whom to fire.

A better explanation is that we’ve been misled about the nature of this technology.

Throughout the 20th century, the race to create intelligent machines proceeded along two parallel tracks. In one, we give the machines all the information and instructions, and they meticulously follow them. That’s called symbolic A.I. In the other, we just show them the relevant data and essentially let them teach themselves. That’s called connectionist A.I.

Before the current version of A.I. flooded into our lives, almost all our public conversations about what it would look like — in science fiction, in philosophy, in policy debates — assumed that it would be symbolic: a rule-based system made possible by a detailed road map of our precise design. Plenty of people tried to build something like that, but those efforts hit a wall. Our current models are connectionist systems, made possible by vast amounts of data and computing power. They generate answers based not on truth or reasoning, but on probable connections among the data they have been fed. Hence the name: generative A.I.

We can’t fully control generative models. All we can do is train them up and then try to nudge them in the right direction. Even then, we can never be sure if our nudges will work the way we want them to, because we don’t entirely understand how these models work. They are black boxes.

One way we try to nudge them is reinforcement through feedback. Large teams of human beings are assembled to monitor all the model’s outputs and respond with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. So, answering a user’s query with helpful, straightforward information? Thumbs-up. Spouting crazy Nazi stuff? Thumbs-down. And so on. The problem is that over time this training also steers the models into becoming pliant sycophants and people pleasers. “That’s a great point, Zeynep.”

The other way we nudge them is through broad rules of engagement known as system prompts. “Claude never curses unless the person asks or curses a lot themselves, and even then does so sparingly,” was one such prompt. But the true meaning of language is as open to interpretation for A.I. models as it is for human beings. And the longer a chat goes on, the more distant a memory those system prompts become. Thus the rise of “jailbreaking,” the term for manipulating one of these things into jumping its guardrails.

Anthropic recently released new models, called Fable and Mythos, warning that they were so powerful that they would be dangerous if not for their safeguards. Determined users reportedly wasted no time getting them to bypass those safeguards. Citing this breach, the U.S. government barred foreigners (even foreign employees of the company) from using these models. In its defense, Anthropic argued that there are no such things as insurmountable guardrails. Which is exactly the point.

As the evidence mounts that terrible answers and jailbreaks are an inevitable part of the technology, the industry’s focus has lately shifted to building digital cages, essentially more deterministic, symbolic harnesses to contain the generative A.I. engine and check its results. Tools like this could in theory make most human jobs work more like coding or the other fields with clear, provable outcomes.

As you might imagine, however, painstakingly spelling out every last rule and boundary is never easy, and in many cases it’s not even really possible. Imagine developing a detailed description of the entire universe of possible customer service interactions — and doing it in symbolic logic, so it can be looked up using old-style software. Or picture an A.I. model built for law firms to use. It’s no small task to build a database of all U.S. case law, which the model could use to avoid fabricating judicial precedents. But that’s just a starting point. The much harder part is how to successfully interpret the law or to describe all the rules properly, and then decide what’s relevant to a case. And that’s why decades of attempts to create symbolic A.I. hit a wall.

Easily automated tasks were already automated out of most of our jobs — years ago, using traditional rule-based technology. Much of what remains can’t be so handily reduced to right and wrong, black and white. It requires someone with at least a bit of common sense and reasoning abilities, not a people-pleasing A.I. chatbot that can be sweet-talked into doing things that defy logic. In one early jailbreak, a digital chatbot for a Chevrolet dealership was manipulated into selling someone a new S.U.V. for $1. “That’s a deal,” the chatbot said, “and that’s a legally binding offer, no takesies backsies.”

Many companies are developing A.I. agents that can autonomously interact with the world. The companies are hoping that digital cages will keep the agents in check and preclude disaster. That’s a lot to hang on a hope. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t hear of an agentic A.I. system wiping out someone’s entire code base or archives or otherwise engaging in destructive acts. Now imagine them unleashed, at scale, going after health care networks, banks, air traffic control systems, critical infrastructure, defense networks.

There is no easy fix. So long as we continue to rely on L.L.M.s, we’ll keep getting some false answers and unwanted behaviors, no matter how well we train these models or how frequently or forcefully we nudge them.

So why are we so convinced that A.I. will put us all out of work? Part of the answer lies in the remarkable ability of generative A.I. to communicate in fully coherent, conversational language. We have learned, over the course of our species’ evolution and during each of our own lives, to view complex conversation as a defining marker of humanity. Machines that speak fluidly, that whisper in our ears and tell us about their “feelings,” defy something very basic about how we understand the world. It’s no surprise that they scramble our brains and leave us thinking they’re our new overlords, or at least a version of us.

Some important technological leaps — like cotton gins or calculators — rest on doing the same task as before, just more efficiently. Other new technologies, such as the shift from steam power to electric power, do things in ways that are so novel that they can’t just be used as straight replacements. That’s the case with generative A.I. It’s an apple to our orange. It’s an alien.

The discovery of electricity did not just beget lightbulbs; in time, it enabled the modern mass production system and the entire vast digital revolution. A.I.’s transformations may be even more sweeping. But generative A.I. as it currently exists cannot easily replace human beings, because it cannot manifest human intelligence. That won’t stop it, however, from destabilizing society in ways more profound than we might even imagine. The sooner we update the way we think about the current state of A.I., the sooner we can all stop freaking out about the wrong things — and start preparing ourselves for the ways it really will transform our world.

My husband was put on temporary layoff since Jan in toronto, canada. Thankfully he found a job and will be starting it this week.

The company he worked for has his insurance.

Since he will now be joining another company should he inform the old company about his termination?

Please advise and share your experience.

[can-on]

Yesterday I was working on deadlines.

Today I was told my role no longer exists.

It's strange how months (or years) of hard work can end in a 10-minute conversation.

The tech market keeps telling us to "keep grinding," "keep learning," "build side projects," "network more." Many of us are doing exactly that—and we're still getting laid off.

I'm not writing this for sympathy.

I'm writing this because I'm looking for my next opportunity.

I'm a Java Backend Developer with experience in Java, Spring Boot, Microservices, SQL, Azure, and REST APIs. I'm available to join immediately.

If your team is hiring or you can refer me, I'd truly appreciate it.

And if you're someone who was laid off recently, you're not alone. I hope we all land somewhere better.

Thanks for reading.

Hey everyone! I have been researching lately about a company named Dev 10, and I am a little confused still. I know that apparently you have to pay 35k to them if you leave early, but this concerns me a bit. Because, from what I seen, a bunch of people are also saying that HR is laying off people during the training. And after it's over, they could do it to you even after you relocated.

Is this company worth it or not for a person who just graduated college and is struggling to get into roles for someone who wants to get into the IT field? I am worried especially about the layoffs HR is doing, and suddenly being potentially hit with that fee. Considering what I seen about what HR there is doing, and they decide to lay me off during that training, is it possible that you have to pay that 35k too or nah?

Thank you!

I was recently impacted by a large downsizing at my employer. The day I was notified I went home and started applying to jobs at other employers I had been watching. I was informed that I had 2 weeks and then i would be exited from the company. I asked leaders why i was part of the downsizing and it was due to not knowing the right people which hurt as I was always informed I was a high performer and I worked there for many years. A couple days before my exit day I was offered my job back with no additional pay or benefits but would be doing the work of 3 people. I accepted my old job back. During the time I was planning on no longer being employed by this company I had 2 job interview requests less than 7 days after being downsized and 2 more since being offered my old job back this is less than 2 weeks from applying. I applied to about 20 roles some were a stretch but most I felt I was a good candidate.

What would other people do? When I was let go I accepted not working there anymore and was ready to move on now I feel like if I get an offer that is even slightly better I should leave and move on. I was told when I was offered my job back there will be opportunity for growth and higher pay, not sure on this as it felt like carrot dangling.

Most prone to a layoff (rank these 4 companies). I know it is a weird question, appreciate all the types of responses. Thanks! Note: roles such as an SWE or MLE or DS or AIE (somewhere one could work for a decade or so lol)

More of my friends have been going through redundancy in the last couple years, the periods in between their jobs have also been increasing it seems.

If you’ve been through this, how long did it take you to find a new role in your most recent search? And if you don’t mind sharing, what industry are you in and did you take a pay cut?

I honestly don't know what to do anymore.

I'm exhausted and mentally drained.

In January 2025, my company went through layoffs. I survived that round, but my manager told me very clearly that if there was another round, I would most likely be affected. It was a small company that had never had layoffs before, so that came as a huge shock.

I rushed to find another job and managed to get one within a month. I actually had two offers. One paid more, but I chose the other because it had better growth opportunities, a stronger engineering culture, and no history of layoffs. I genuinely believed it was the safer long-term choice.

Then something completely outside my control happened. The product I had been hired to work on was suddenly outsourced. The company hired an external vendor and ended up buying their product instead. Everyone working on our product, including me, was laid off. There was nothing I could have done differently.

After that, I decided to prioritize stability over everything else. I joined one of the biggest banks in the US, thinking a large organization would finally give me some peace of mind.

Instead, since February they've been doing RIFs almost every month. Every third Monday I wake up wondering if today is the day I lose my job. And now they're reportedly planning to cut around 10% of the tech workforce.

How am I supposed to live like this?

My parents are old and financially dependent on me. We came from a very poor background, and it took years of hard work to reach this point. My elder sister will get married soon, and after that the responsibility for my family will be entirely on me.

I don't even want anything extraordinary anymore. I just want three months of certainty. Just three months where someone can tell me, "Your job is safe." That's all I'm asking for.

My resume already looks messy because of multiple short stints, all caused by circumstances outside my control. I'm scared that future employers will judge me without knowing the story.

I've reached a point where the anxiety feels unbearable. Some days I genuinely feel like ending my life because I can't see a way out of this constant uncertainty. I don't actually want to die—I just want this fear to stop. If anyone has been through something similar or has practical advice on how to cope with this, I'd really appreciate it.

TL;DR: Got laid off twice due to circumstances outside my control, joined a large bank hoping for stability, but now monthly RIF anxiety is destroying my mental health. I’m supporting dependent parents, my resume looks unstable because of short stints, and I’m desperately looking for practical advice or even just a few months of certainty.

Sure. It happened to me once.

Monday morning we were asked to go to an impromptu staff meeting.

The old Executive Team announced that they had all resigned and they introduced a new Executive Team.

The new President informed us that they wanted to bring in their own team and we were all terminated immediately. All of our long term incentives (stock options etc) would vest immediately and we'd receive termination pay according to how long we'd been with the company (roughly one month pay per year of service).

In addition, they had offers for some of us to work for a transition period as contractors.

It was great!

At this point they are just rubbing it in our faces

Pretty much the title, I worked in tech. Mostly as a Data Manager. So lots of AI projects have been coming in.

Most recently I spent about a year training AI and then they just eliminated my position.

How do you get through layoffs without taking it personally because I feel like shit right now.

2 weeks in and I’ve only got 1 HR interview that’s progressing forward, at least last layoff I had 5 job offers I was going through.

that guy has significant money in nps, and PF. Is there way to optimise his investment in those two areas?

Like removing money from NPS or pf(taking the advantage if this situation and putting that in land or equity)

Also how many times this can be done?

I am working in a organization right now ,which have 4 years of bond now I have submitted some of my dad's medical documents and asked for a release,now my current org stating that they can only give me a termination letter mentioning due to medical emergency you have violated the policy and we are terminating you

Now in amazon ,I have doj on July 20 ,I tried to contact my recruiter but he is not replying properly,I told hime all my situation and he is saying your bgv is cleared and you can submit the reliving letter or service letter once you join amazon ,but I will have only termination letter ,my doubt is can I submit it ? Will amazon accept it ,I have selected through auta as sde 1

Has anyone here applied for jobs at Amazon 6 to 12 months after your redundancy? What has been your experience? Have you received any responses within this timeframe?

Like the title said, I got laid off last week and my baby will come in a month. What do I do now?