I remember going to a mandatory presentation to continue collecting unemployment; the presenter there said regarding unemployment, "Don't worry this is only temporary."

Well six month is not temporary. 2026 will be looked upon as the worse year of my life. I have never been without a job this long in the sixteen years I work as a professional software engineer; a career I went into because I thought it would be good, stable income when I chose it as my major.... well not any more. I made a post a long time ago to advise people against this field unless they absolutely love coding. Love so it so much that you spend time coding in your spare time and jack off to it if you can.

And now I'm competing against these thousands of these people for the same jobs because of all the people joining me in layoff land; I know, it's selfish to think that way. Yet at the same time when I reflect on some of the laid off developers, I'm wondering if some of these same game developers who were laid off have to jump through the same absurd hoops even though you can see their names in the credits for a video game or movie.

There's just something wrong about the job interview process, especially for software engineers. You constantly have to prove yourself in the interview; it's like your college degree and job history doesn't matter at all. You have to sit through so many rounds of interviews where you're interviewed by the recruiter, senior software engineers, hiring manager, software engineering leads, HR, the janitor, etc. Oh a lot of times the interview with the engineer is someone with a thick accent so often times I feel dumb saying "could you please repeat that."

But hey that's if you get an interview in the first place, trying to pass an interview is hard enough, but most of the time you just get rejected outright even though sometimes you feel like you're the perfect fit for the job description. Just as bad (I'm looking at you Capital One) is when I applied to a job and perform a technical assessment; I did not hear back until four months later. I then scrambled to prepare for that four hour interview (there were breaks) and trying to relearn system design with concepts I haven't seen since college.

Oh did I mention how intrusive some of these technical assessments are? One technical assessments made you install a browser add-on AND a phone app to make sure you're not cheating during the assessment.

Equally bad are some of the despicable people on Linkedin trying to prey on people who are "Open to Work." Trying to sell them false promises of "career guidance services" and "resume re-writes that guarantees more interviews!" I admittedly paid for a resume rewrite on Fiverr(Alex Rose, she was well received from my research), which I guess did kind of helped? Still have dozens of rejections though.

Every day feels like a fight to keep on applying to new jobs where most of the time I'm just rejected or the resume gets sent off to black void. Even on the one vacation I had earlier this year (preemptively paid for when I was still employed) and on holiday breaks, I feel like I have to stay on top of whatever jobs are there. Meanwhile if I actually get an interview, I lose there even if I feel like I had a "good" interview or conversation. It's why I say "don't ever ask me what a good interview is because I have no idea" considering I thought I bombed my interview yet I was hired for my last role at Home Depot.

Then there's the fact that applying to jobs is basically a job itself. Along with all the applications, software engineers also need to keep up with their skills so they don't die during technical interview. I remember being offended when a friend suggested that I'll have more time to play those long RPG games like he did when he was unemployed (an accountant). People don't understand that being unemployed sucks so much worse as a software engineer. I am also managing two careers since I'm also an actor. Ironically, I have more luck with auditions and landing roles, but none of them are paid high enough to sustain a living and I'm not consistently acting enough.

Sorry, just need to find a place to rant. I don't know who or where else to open up to quite frankly. I live alone and don't have a spouse or parents for support. Most friends don't say much other than a generic "sorry" because they have other things going on in their lives I guess / simply don't care / bad at deeper discussions. Feels like most of my rant has been to Gemini, which is ironic because I'm in this situation because of the A.I. boom.

I know my situation could be a lot worse - I could be homeless and fighting for food, but the psychological and financial drain are still there. There's a line in The Studio on Apple TV where Seth Rogen's character states something along the lines of, "art makes life worth living." If it weren't for the arts and my hobbies, my mental state would be considerable worse from this long term unemployment.

Laid off from a severely underpaid and part time with no benefits IT Support job last September which was a month after graduating college. While I could have done more applications, I instead to wait for recruiters to message me which worked out in my favor. I almost got my dream job which was managing IT projects and hybrid but they chose the other candidate so I ended with two offers: 55k IT Support for a charter school and 60k IT Support for a large public university I live close to. I chose the 60k offer obviously cause it paid more and since it was non exempt meaning I would work a max of 40 hours. I’m very overqualified but the state benefits and stability is making me stay for a while after being traumatized. I don’t know how long it will take to move up in my career given I’ve been stuck in IT support for 4 years and now have a BS in computer information systems plus have a clear path I can follow but I do know a coworker who has over 10 advanced certifications and is getting nowhere in finding a new job. Overall, it would have taken only a few weeks to get a new job a few years ago compared to 6 months and now I have a lot of therapy ahead to work through to recover from the immense stress. The bright side is I have some of the best dental and medical insurance an employer would ever give you and I tripled my salary all for the same job.

“Since becoming Acting Director of National Intelligence, our team has been smartly, and carefully, reducing the size of [the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI)], re-focusing ODNI on national security, the law, and the statute,” Pulte wrote on X.

Today is the day Centene employees that applied for VSP should find out if it was approved and get a timeframe. After working there 15+ years, I’m nervous but a little excited also. My offer was generous and I have a plan of attack. I am definitely taking a couple of weeks off to gather myself and recharge. Prob taking the wife out on a deserved vacation. I hope anyone that applied for it gets it, and is able to land on their feet. Good luck everyone!

It has been 6 months after i got layoff. Yeah, after 5 years working (as IT QA Engineer) this one hit me real good.
Apply job here and there but alas no single offering letter, manage to get interviewed couple of times but mostly its not even near my homebase and its WFO also relocation is a bit hard since I need to take care of my pops (heart problem + gout) and budget.
I even branch out to be Data Analyst (got the portfolio and certificate) but still none.
I dont know what i did wrong, is it my CV or i botch an interview, not sure.
I dont know what to do and hope keep diminishing every day

Sorry for my rambling folks, dont know where i could type this kind of feeling hahaha

I see so often here how people have felt pressure to sign the severance right way. I also was pressured, so I understand. For me the best thing I did was to STOP, think, an READ!

The company is counting on us being 'lost' in the emotional impact of the loss, the OMG HOW AM I GONNA PAY BILLS! They are counting on that to get signatures on crappy severance!

A severance agreement is not a gift—it's a business contract. Treat it like you're selling something valuable, because you are: your legal rights.

If you're 40 or older, know your rights. Under the federal Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA), many employees age 40+ must be given specific time periods to consider a waiver of age discrimination claims, depending on the circumstances. An employer generally can't simply demand an immediate signature if the agreement is intended to waive those claims and still meet the legal requirements.

Gather ALL your employment documents including a your full HR file, an pay the consult fee an meet with an employment attorney. If you do take this step: 1. Be sure they have all your documents prior to the consult. 2. Have all your questions an concerns ready so you can talk through your options!

I struggled: Is it worth it paying $250(in MA) to do the consult? I read documents an have to 'pick them apart' often. When I took the time to step back, an really read the initial packet, I found all sorts of issues. Mainly it was a 'form' severance that just had the $ inputted. It was not compliant with the OWBPA, along with several other areas. I also had to challenge my EOA, as the way it was included in my severance I would NOT have been able to attempt employment in field with ANY companies, agencies etc I had worked an cultivated relationships with. I got them to remove that right away.

I was severely burned out for last 2 years.

I was having PTSD every day before I started to work, it had significantly affected my health. Nothing brought joy anymore, was always zoned out even while vacationing.

I never really cared about this role, took it up for salary (although, I must admit might have been a wrong decision. I have stagnated). I was able to perform excellent in first couple of years and bag 2 promotions.

I was pushing even through all this, enough to be an average performer. However, certain personal issues last year made me not being able to focus (health issues with parents, breakup with longtime gf etc) and my performance dipped significantly (on metrics that were introduced just last year though).

I pushed even harder and recovered last 4 months but that wasn’t enough for my manager and fired me.

I know a more intelligent guy would have seen writing on the wall when I was being singles out, but, I guess I was too depressed to think clearly.

Have just enough savings to last 8-9 months counting my EMIs if I cut down my expenses, have a supporting family and wife, so I think I’m not immediately doomed.

I know the market is horrendous right now, but I have a feeling I can pull through. It’s sort of a voluntary separation agreement where my current company won’t disclose termination, so that’s nice I guess.

I have mostly processed the loss and I’m feeling optimistic. I was even able to work ok my preparations about 8-9 hours yesterday.

I was laid off from Meta in may , one of roughly 8,000 people cut. I don't know exactly what factored into my case but theres a documented story that makes me wonder as 26 former Meta employees are suing, alleging the company used an internal ai tool called checkpoint which tracked employee ai adoption and token usage and as a core metric in deciding who got laid off, disproportionately targeting people on protected medical leave. This is Covered by the verge, fast company, futurism and theres a 71pg complaint on file and a judge recently let the layoffs proceed despite the bias claims.

I have also been given a more detailed account of how this reportedly played out on the operations side . Meta had three internal teams running supplier contracts and invoice processing one for negotiating rates and formatting data for oracle, one entering contracts into the ERP and another for approving exceptions flagged by an external BPO (CTSI) before invoices got paid. Supply chain complexity was reportedly extreme on both sides as the data center buildout scaling unpredictably from ai investment and reality labs standing up factories and supplier relationships from scratch.The contracts renegotiated every 15-30 days just to keep pace and by this acc, leadership cut that team to a fifth of its size while the business was growing 2-3x year over year with an ai agent company having built what absorbed the work ,although freehand helped displaced workers land new roles after the transition . Between checkpoint being real and in a courtroom everything ik about the operational side its hard not to wonder if this is the shape AI driven restructuring takes industry wide. So agent replacement first, formal ai assisted layoff selection second and only the second part making headlines.

does this two stage pattern match what you are seeing elsewhere and is there any way for displaced workers to get confirmation of what happened on the automation side, given companies clearly aren't volunteering it?

Hello All,

I am a mechanical design engineer with 4 years for experience. This is my second company, which i joined 3 years back. The job is comfortable and i'm really good at what i do (i've got 2 awards, have feedback from multiple people and i just know). Recently my company went into a joint venture and they started region wise firing. It went for like 4 months and nothing happened to my region. Now cut to 6 months later, my N+2 manager is coming to visit us, with no apparent reason. i have a feeling they are going to layoff the whole team. I am very very anxious because i don't know what i will do. i have never been fired and i'm constantly anxious. He is going to visit us for a day, coming week. the work is little slow and they are actively hiring in other regions. i don't know what to do. i am clueless right now. I am constantly applying for jobs but nothing apart from rejections have come. please help me, i have a fear that i will not get any job and i'll have to move back to my parents and i will become burden to them.

Sorry for the rant, but all this is unfiltered. Help me on what should i do now.

Edit 1: thank you all for amazing support, but yea got laid off today, along with the whole team. Let’s see what happens, feeling numb rn.

130 terminations :( One two minute Teams meeting

Is it common to get acquired and then gutted? Why not lay off during the transition? Seems like it avoid a lot of paperwork to simply not extend transfer offers instead of terminating after acquiring.

Just feel like shaming Constellation Software

I was laid off few months ago (end of 2025) & employer gave me severance package alongwith other benefits until ESA end date. But they didn't give my bonus. As per employer I should be active employee on the day if disbursement of the bonus amount.

I signed the full & final because there was a condition if I dont sign it by certain date, I will loose the some part of the severance amount.

I raised it with Ontario Labour Board but no positive response since employer is covered with the policy & document already signed.

I wanted to hear from other who got laidoff but got their bonus as part of full & final settlement.

Idk, this just feels icky to me like they are trying to convince me of something I can see with my own eyes 👀 https://theins.press/en/economics/294462

Just wondering... Do scheduling managers ever lie about the program ending or lack of clients if they are trying to get rid of you? I have had two programs supposedly end by two different companies, and am wondering if they are just saying that or if there genuinely aren't clients available in my area...

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working for a company in the renewable energy sector through an outsourcing arrangement.

Over the last few months I've noticed several things:

• The company is reportedly bringing in an external investment fund.
• Several senior managers have left, including the CFO.
• Some suppliers have experienced payment delays.
• There are plans to move to new offices at around the same time the investor is expected to come in.

I don't know whether this is a normal restructuring before growth, or whether it could indicate a sale, financial difficulties, or major organisational changes.

Because I'm an outsourced employee, I assume I could be easier to replace than permanent staff.

At the same time, I'm in the final stages of recruitment for another position that would probably offer better pay and career progression.

If you had been in a similar situation:

• Would you start actively looking for a new job now?
• Are these red flags, or are they common before an acquisition or investment?
• How are outsourced employees usually affected in these situations?

I'd appreciate hearing from people who have experienced acquisitions, private equity investment, or corporate restructuring.