How do I cope with layoff anxiety?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It was very early on a Monday and got a 8 a.m. meeting invite from my manager. Honestly, I didn't think much of it until I dialed in and there was a person who I didn't know on the other end. And she just very briefly said, Hi, Melody, I'm so-and-so. This call is to let you know your employment has been terminated immediately.
What is layoff anxiety and how does it manifest?
I felt just all of the blood drain out of my face in that moment. It was the last thing I was expecting.
Getting laid off is brutal. It's the floor dropping out from under you. In that instant, Melody Wilding's brain snapped into survival mode.
Oh my God, what does this mean? How am I going to pay my rent? And what about my health care? It was so visceral and at the time felt so traumatic that I still think about it to this day. I can still remember exactly where I was, the feeling of the sun coming through my window and how what was happening felt so dissonant to this news I just got.
How can reframing anxiety help during layoffs?
We're going to hear more from Melody Wilding later in the episode. But I wanted to start here because even if you haven't been laid off, maybe you've imagined this kind of scenario, the blindsiding, the sudden freefall. I think it's a fear a lot of people are carrying right now. Because it's hard to avoid the headlines. Companies across tech, retail, and media, from Amazon and Nike to Pinterest and UPS, have already announced job cuts this year. Just in January, more than 108,000 layoffs were announced. And when companies explain those cuts, you tend to hear the same words on repeat. AI, inflation, quote-unquote restructuring. Hearing all that, it's easy for our brains to spiral into what-ifs. Like, what if my job is the next to go?
What practical steps can I take to prepare for a potential layoff?
What if this paycheck is my last? I am Rima Grace, and welcome to This is Uncomfortable, the weekly show from Marketplace about life and how money messes with it. This week, we're asking, how do we cope with layoff anxiety? This is going to be something of a how-to episode. We're going to get advice from three different experts, a psychologist, a career coach, and a financial educator. I want to find out what this kind of fear does to our brains, how it can mess with our work, and how to get our finances in order to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
Okay, so first, what is layoff anxiety? Layoff anxiety can manifest physically, so that could be trouble sleeping, difficulty concentrating, feeling tense and on edge, being irritable, being anxious can make us really grouchy. It can manifest emotionally, that could be as anxiety, dread, or also like volatility, like swinging between feeling hopeful and hopeless.
That's Ellen Hendrickson.
How can I strengthen my financial safety net?
She's a clinical psychologist and anxiety specialist from Boston University. She says layoff anxiety seeps into how you feel, how you act, even how you treat the people around you.
And then, of course, there's those behavioral symptoms. So that could be worry, excessive research, reassurance seeking, like looking at your finances to the point where it's costing you more than it's buying you. Asking your colleagues repeatedly what they think is going to happen. And sometimes the anxiety is about more than you just will I get laid off and can tap into our deeper fears and insecurities because we all bring our own individual factors into play. Our just how we're wired, our personality, our upbringing, like so much can influence how we feel.
It used to be that layoff anxiety referred to disproportionate worry about job loss. Like, you know, an irrational fear that's disconnected from the reality of what's actually going on. Those are the kind of clients Ellen would usually work with, helping them see that their anxiety is unfounded and coming up with new coping mechanisms.
What emotional strategies can I use to cope with layoff fears?
But now I am seeing, I think, appropriate worries about job loss. But the good news is we can still do things for either scenario.
Talk about that anxiety in this specific moment that we're in.
Absolutely. I think at this moment, it is really real and really valid. Every human reacts to the situations they're put in. So when we are put in a situation and a cultural moment where companies really are replacing employees with AI, where there really is global economic uncertainty, where there really were mass firings under Doge that shook up a lot of Americans, like under those circumstances, it is normal to react with some layoff anxiety.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:03–0:27
2
What is layoff anxiety and how does it manifest?
0:27–1:08
3
How can reframing anxiety help during layoffs?
1:08–1:48
4
What practical steps can I take to prepare for a potential layoff?
1:48–2:51
5
How can I strengthen my financial safety net?
2:51–3:54
6
What emotional strategies can I use to cope with layoff fears?
3:54–4:47
7
How to effectively communicate my value to employers?
4:47–5:12
8
What should I do immediately after a layoff?
5:12–34:33