More than 100,000 workers at U.S.-based tech corporations have been laid off in mass job cuts to this point this yr.
Google announced plans to put off 12,000 individuals in January. That identical month, Microsoft stated it was letting go of 10,000 workers. Meta has additionally made sizeable cuts to its workforce, slashing 1000’s of jobs in 4 rounds of layoffs that began in November 2022 and continued by means of May 2023.
“It was like fixed water torture all year long, with massive tech layoffs occurring almost each month,” Megan Slabinski, the district president for international expertise options at recruitment agency Robert Half, tells CNBC Make It.
Much has been written in regards to the layoffs that ricocheted by means of Silicon Valley, from workers live-tweeting layoff bulletins to CEOs writing long blog posts explaining their choices.
But much less has been stated about what occurred to the 1000’s of people that misplaced their jobs in these large employees cuts.
Some laid-off workers instantly discovered new jobs at smaller software program corporations and web corporations or continued their careers outdoors of tech, pivoting to consulting, well being care, finance and different industries wanting to recruit prime expertise who might need in any other case stayed at bigger tech corporations.
Others — counting on their severance packages, financial savings or a unique supply of revenue — are taking a break, recovering from the stress and shock of being laid off.
Finding new alternatives in non-tech industries
Bobby McNeil had been working at Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Amazon, for simply over one yr when he acquired information that he can be a part of a company-wide layoff in January.
“It was a dream to lastly be working at a prime tech firm, my time at AWS was extremely useful,” says McNeil, who was a senior technical lead sourcing recruiter for AWS. “Even although I’ve skilled layoffs in my profession [at other tech companies] earlier than, being laid off once more was nonetheless stunning.”
The 39-year-old remembers scrolling by means of LinkedIn nearly in a daze, and seeing a deluge of posts from different tech workers throughout the business who had additionally not too long ago misplaced their jobs.
McNeil needed to start out working immediately however thought jobs at tech corporations may be extra aggressive given the latest spate of layoffs.
Experiencing just a few layoffs all through his profession has additionally proven Bobby McNeil, a former Amazon worker, the significance of untangling your self-worth from your job.
Photo: Morgan Crutchfield Photography
So, he turned his consideration to recruiting roles in different industries. After just a few weeks of networking and submitting dozens of functions, he landed a contract gig as a expertise acquisition accomplice at a Fortune 500 firm. (McNeil declined to share the title and business of his employer so he might converse freely about his work state of affairs.)
“If this expertise taught me something, it is that it is simple to take the abilities you will have from working in tech and leverage them to land a good higher job at a non-tech firm, whether or not it is within the finance business, the federal government sector or well being care, simply as just a few examples,” he says. “The transferable expertise that you just achieve from working within the tech business may be actually useful in different fields.”
Experiencing just a few layoffs all through his profession has additionally proven McNeil the significance of untangling your self-worth from your job.
“It’s good to search out worth in what you do, and it is good to work exhausting and be a faithful worker, however your identification should not be tied up in what you do 40 hours per week,” he says. “You can discover self-worth in different features of your life, whether or not it is a private curiosity or entrepreneurial pursuit.”
‘The gold customary has modified’
When Melissa Zlatow first learn the e-mail saying that she can be one of many workers dropping her job as a part of Meta’s first spherical of layoffs in November 2022, she thought it was a joke.
“I opened the e-mail at 5 within the morning on my day off in Los Angeles and I used to be like, ‘This cannot be occurring,'” says Zlatow, who had been a principal UX researcher and strategist at Meta for seven years. “None of us were anticipating it.”
Her first intuition was to attach with different affected colleagues on Facebook. “The lucky factor for me was that I had a group to fall again on,” Zlatow, who selected to not disclose her age, says. “I discovered that there were additionally loads of high-performing, influential administrators and vice presidents who were laid off, so I used to be in good firm.”
She continues: “I feel I went by means of all phases of grief within the week [following the news], however searching for individuals who were additionally laid off, and with the ability to work collectively to navigate issues like severance and medical insurance was an enormous motive why I used to be in a position to transfer on shortly and healthily from the layoff.”
Zlatow’s expertise gave her an thought: What if laid-off tech workers had a secure area to attach, vent, share job leads and work with one another?
Melissa Zlatow moved from San Jose to Chicago in July after dropping her job at Meta earlier this yr. She says the layoff allowed her to relocate to her “favourite metropolis on the planet.”
Photo: Melissa Zlatow
Weeks after she misplaced her job at Meta, Zlatow constructed a enterprise incubator to attach laid-off tech workers with startups, profession coaches, administration coaching and different assets.
“One of the issues that occurs after a layoff is there are out of the blue an inflow of individuals with sensible minds and loads of time on their palms,” she says. “It was actually essential to me to collect individuals focused on fixing particular issues and do hackathons and brainstorming periods.”
She additionally began talking at tech conferences and workshops about UX design, synthetic intelligence and different takeaways from her profession, to mentor and encourage younger professionals. “Being in a position to assist others received me out of my rut,” she says.
The layoff has enriched Zlatow’s private life, too. She moved from San Jose to Chicago in July, turned an authorized superior underwater cave diver and is within the technique of getting her paragliding license.
Zlatow determined to take a full yr off earlier than committing to a different full-time job, recognizing that this is a privilege that not everybody has.
After her layoff, Zlatow spoke together with her monetary advisor to find out how lengthy she might go with out full-time work. She needed to give attention to her well being and take a look at issues she “would not have the luxurious of doing whereas working in a company grind,” she says.
“I wasn’t prepared to leap into one thing new with out discovering a mission I did not totally imagine in only for one other paycheck after working in tech for thus lengthy,” she says.
This previous yr has made Zlatow reevaluate the following chapter of her profession, which can or might not be within the tech business.
“It’s been reminder that working in tech is not the end-all-be-all,” she says. “The gold customary has modified: Five years in the past, working at a big-name tech firm was a really perfect to aspire to, however the layoffs have proven me, and others, you could have an unimaginable impression on the world in so many different methods.”
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