layoff survival guide
The first 48 hours matter more than the next 16 weeks of severance.
This week, Meta cut 8,000 people. If that was you, here’s a playbook for the next 48 hours.
At 4 a.m. Singapore time on Wednesday, the Workday notifications started going out.
London and New York followed as the morning hit each region. By the time the US workday was over, around 8,000 people at Meta had been told their last day was already on the calendar.
Another 6,000 open requisitions got cancelled the same week. That’s 14,000 people who are either hunting for a new job right now or about to compete with someone who is.
One of the impacted also happens to be my real sister, alongside multiple close friends, so this one is personal.
If you got the email this week, this issue is written for you or if you know someone who did, forward it to them.
Context on the situation:
Layoffs.fyi has now tracked 113,863 layoffs across 179 tech companies in 2026 so far. That works out to roughly 813 jobs lost per day, well above last year’s pace.
A snapshot of recent months:
Meta: 8,000 people cut starting May 20, plus 6,000 cancelled requisitions. Confirmed in Janelle Gale’s internal memo (first reported by Bloomberg) and in Mark Zuckerberg’s company-wide note.
Intuit: 3,000 people, or 17% of the company. Announced just this week.
Microsoft: A voluntary buyout offer in late April to roughly 7% of its US workforce (around 8,750 eligible employees) under a new Rule-of-70 retirement program.
Salesforce: Around 1,000 roles cut earlier this year across teams.
Oracle, Amazon, Cisco, Block: All have reduced headcount in 2026, with Oracle’s cuts now running into the tens of thousands.
In his memo, Zuckerberg called AI “the most consequential technology of our lifetimes” and told employees he doesn’t expect another company-wide layoff in 2026.
Reuters first reported back in March that the eventual cuts could reach 20% of Meta’s workforce, and follow-up reporting says additional rounds are planned for the second half of the year. The timing isn’t final, though several sources point to August.
Whether the next round lands in August or later in the year, what you do this week looks the same.
The 5 things to do within 48 hours of getting a layoff email
Step 1: Don’t sign the severance immediately
The most recent LHH Severance & Separation Benefits study surveyed 700 HR leaders across 500 US and 200 Canadian organisations.
They were asked one question: Can severance pay be negotiated?
80% of them said yes.
For context, here is what Meta is offering its US employees, based on Janelle Gale’s memo (also reported by Bloomberg):
16 weeks of base pay
Plus 2 extra weeks for every year of service
Up to 18 months of healthcare coverage
Career support and immigration assistance
This is what I’d push on, in rough order of dollar impact:
Equity vesting acceleration. Meta historically doesn’t accelerate vesting on a layoff, Google sometimes has. If you are four weeks from a cliff, one conversation here can be worth more than the entire base severance.
Separation date. Pushing your last paid day out by 30 to 60 days can put you on the right side of another RSU vest.
Outplacement extension. Google and Microsoft have historically offered six months of outplacement support. It’s reasonable to ask for parity.
PTO payout. Sometimes missing from the first draft of the agreement, so bring it up explicitly.
Non-disparagement and non-compete language. California already places strict limits on non-competes. Read what’s in front of you carefully before agreeing.
When HR calls, this kind of response works:
“Thank you for the package. I want to review it carefully with an advisor before signing. Can we reconnect on [a date 7 to 10 days out]?”
If you are 40 or older in the US, federal law (the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act) gives you a 21-day window to review the agreement and 7 more days after signing to revoke it.
If you need that time to read it carefully with a lawyer, use that window.
Step 2: If you’re on H-1B, check your I-94 today
The 60-day grace period starts the day after your last paid day, as Manifest Law’s H-1B guide explains. Severance pay or continued healthcare coverage does not pause that timer.
What to do this week:
Check your I-94 on the CBP website. If your I-94 expires before your 60-day window does, the earlier date is your real deadline.
File Form I-129 the moment you have a new offer. Premium processing turnaround is 15 calendar days.
Don’t leave the country. The grace period ends the moment you board a flight out.
If 30 days pass without an offer, get on a call with an immigration attorney about switching to H-4, F-1, or O-1.
Henry Lindpere, Senior Counsel at Manifest Law explains, “We’ve seen people with expired I-94s in the CBP system getting NTAs while in their 60-day grace period.”
NTAs are Notices to Appear in immigration court.
The risk has grown since the USCIS policy update last year, so it’s worth treating the 60-day window as a deadline rather than a cushion.
Step 3: Fix your resume and LinkedIn ASAP
By the end of day, the headline on your LinkedIn profile should not still read “Software Engineer at [Company X].”
“Aspiring AI-native engineer in transition” is also not a headline. Please. 😭
When thousands of ex-Meta engineers all keep the same generic title, every senior IC posting at Anthropic, OpenAI, Stripe, and the AI teams at Indian unicorns gets buried under identical profiles.
The recruiter scrolling that list cannot tell you apart from the next 100 candidates with the same job title and the same five years at the same company.
Two things to fix before Friday.
Resume.
It’s free, and it takes about three minutes.
LinkedIn.
Do both before you send out a single application.
Step 4: Apply with intent, not in panic
The advantage of applying early is well-documented, as seen in this Boston University research, which found that applications drop sharply once a job has been posted for more than a few days, and being among the first applicants meaningfully improves your chance of being noticed.
But fire off 200 applications with the same generic resume.
That just gets you rejected 200 times in parallel.
The ATS at Stripe doesn’t know that you are hurting, and doesn’t care.
A more useful first week, in my experience, looks something like this:
20 careful applications at companies you would want to work at
20 warm intros from people who already know your work
10 specific DMs to hiring managers (not recruiters)
Where the hiring is happening right now:
Anthropic. Just hired Andrej Karpathy on Tuesday, per TechCrunch. Senior software engineer total comp at Anthropic now sits in the $445K–$575K range, with a median around $563K, per Levels.fyi.
OpenAI. Plans to add about 3,500 roles by the end of 2026, going from 4,500 to 8,000 people. Bloomberg, citing FT reporting.
Meta itself. Around 7,000 employees are being moved into new AI pods under Alexandr Wang’s Superintelligence Labs. So yes, the company that just laid you off may try to interview you back into a different team next month. I know. 🙃
India. Nasscom data has the IT workforce sitting around 5.9 million, with GCCs absorbing senior talent. Walmart Global Tech, JPMorgan, Goldman, Apple India, and Shell are all adding roles across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune.
Indian unicorns. Razorpay, Zerodha, CRED, Zepto, Meesho, and Groww all hire senior engineers in the ₹60–120 LPA band.
Also, keep an eye on X where recruiters are looking to hire specifically from the pool that was laid off from your organization.
Step 5: Track every application
Applying to jobs without tracking them is how you end up on a phone screen three weeks from now, blanking on what the company does.
When the recruiter from company number 14 calls you on a random Tuesday and opens with “so what attracted you to us?”, you’ll be glad you wrote it all down.
One last thing.
There is a Reid Hoffman line from his book, The Startup of You, that I keep coming back to: “For life in permanent beta, the trick is to never stop starting.”
Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn, so he reads this market from the recruiter’s side of the table. Just keep this in mind if you’ve been impacted.
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