Layoffs in an ever-changing world

PAOLO KERNAHAN

GETTING laid off is rarely a happy occasion; unless you hate your job. Attending a full slate of meetings one day and the next finding you're locked out of your work e-mail has got to be a serious mind intercourse.

Today's job market and business landscape feel like one of those old-school video games – the pace quickens as you move through different levels. Obstacles become more numerous and treacherous. Suddenly widening gaps increase in frequency. Eventually, you get flattened by a giant wooden mallet.

Many commentators are describing sweeping layoffs in the tech sector as the "bursting of the tech bubble." Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Shopify, Spotify and Vimeo, among others, are swinging a merciless scythe through their ranks.

While reasons may vary from one company to the next, the consensus is these companies are now making painful corrections. The people who have lost jobs are victims of a cruel mathematical adjustment.

I know first-hand the agony of being laid off, having experienced it twice.

In 2005, the television station where I started my career in journalism shut down. In the process, workers who'd been on the job, some of them for decades, were scattered to the winds. I moved on to another television station. Within a few years, their newsroom foundered, sending me home with my box of junk again.

This was becoming a habit, so I changed my entire idea of what it means to earn an income. I had to become more nimble, and able to adapt quickly in a fluid environment. This is more true today than ever.

The seeming unfairness of billion-dollar companies callously sloughing off workers is a debate without horizon. Reasons for job cuts in the tech sector aren't as important as the need to reckon with the realities of an increasingly hyper-dynamic job market and business landscape.

Many ex-Google employees have turned to TikTok to talk about their experiences. Some are taking it in stride, planning to use their severance package and residual healthcare benefits to recalibrate. Others are less gracious in accepting the forced diversion from their life plan or dream job.

The one fact people in the tech industry should appreciate, perhaps more than everyone else, is the extreme changeability of the business world. Indeed, much of that change is being driven by the technology itself. Fickle circumstances force us to make sharper turns than we are perhaps prepared for.

ChatGPT, for example, has been around for just two months, but the ripple effect of this advanced AI will surely create roiling seas for certain professions and businesses.

Job security is a conceit of a bygone era. We live in a time of constant upheaval. In today's world of ever-shifting sands, the belief that getting laid off is a lightning strike is somewhat naive.

The same world of rapid evolution, though, offers more opportunities for people to seize control over their career paths. Increasingly, more of us are leveraging the power of social media to future-proof our futures, as it were.

Used correctly, these platforms can be used to reach vast audiences and reinterpret how skills, experience and expertise are monetised. For those who believe their abilities and commitment weren't valued by previous employers, social media platforms give you access to countless others who will, in fact, value what you bring to the table.

Moreover, there's also the option of developing a passion into a side hustle. Health and fitness, building computers, writing books – there's no shortage of people online who've converted passions into thriving sources of income.

Finally, in a new age where the music changes every minute, it pays to keep upgrading your skills. When I was laid off I knew there was no point internally wrangling over why the companies where I worked failed. I had to build my future, one that wouldn't hinge on the caprice of employers – that means constantly learning new skills.

Getting laid off can feel like a betrayal, an inhumane disregard for the years of service and intellectual effort you've invested in your job. We would all like to believe employers are invested in the welfare of their workers. After all, a happy and fulfilled workforce makes for thriving companies. How businesses think about the employee and how the employee thinks about their role in the business are usually grossly misaligned.

It's impractical to build careers or businesses without an appreciation of the dynamic nature of the world today. Change is happening faster, life turns ever sharper. We can either harness that change or be plowed under it.