5 hours ago 3

I felt shocked, sad and ashamed when I got laid off. Now I'm helping others find community (and vent) post-layoff.

In 2023, Melanie Ehrenkranz was one of the more than 700,000 planned layoffs in the United States. Two years later, she runs the newsletter Laid Off, a hub of layoff stories and a thriving community of people who have experienced what has come to seem like a 21st-century employee rite of passage.

As told to Yahoo’s Elena Sheppard, Ehrenkranz shares in her own words how building this community has helped her destigmatize her own layoff experience — and showed her that everyone in every industry is vulnerable to job loss. And while getting laid off may feel deeply personal, she’s come to realize that it is more often than not anything but.

I worked in media for over a decade, which meant I’d seen a lot of my endlessly talented and smart friends and peers experience layoffs. It was sheer luck and timing that I evaded being laid off for so long. I was finally laid off in 2023 from an early-stage startup. In hindsight, all the signs were there that a layoff was pending. Still, when I heard the news, I immediately felt shock, sadness and even shame. I also felt instantly close to the coworkers who went through the layoff with me. It’s been more than two years since we were laid off together via Zoom, and we’re still in a group chat.

About a year after getting laid off, I had a light bulb moment for what would ultimately become my Substack, Laid Off. I was standing in my kitchen making lunch. I had just scrolled through my LinkedIn feed, which was full of layoff posts and “open to work” badges, and I suddenly had the feeling: I want to talk to all these laid-off people.

I’d felt attuned to others who had gone through similar experiences since joining the laid-off club, and the clarifying moment for me was realizing I wanted to formalize these conversations in order to help all of us feel less alone. Looking through my LinkedIn, I felt a deep desire to know how all these other layoffs had gone down. Was it an impromptu (and quick) Zoom call like mine? Did they also form group chats with the colleagues they were laid off alongside? What did their days look like now? How was their job search going? Had their relationship to work changed? My idea in that moment was to create the coolest place on the internet to talk about being laid off. I imagined it as a newsletter with frank interviews with people who had been laid off; I didn’t want to soothe people with grief posts or fix people with hustle inspo — I wanted to create a space that helped people going through layoffs feel less alone.

When I announced the newsletter idea on LinkedIn, it went viral. I shared a survey to get a sense of the layoff landscape, and within days, I had hundreds of responses. I had to momentarily pause the survey because of the sheer number of people responding. That was immediately validating, and it was clear that layoffs were something that people wanted, or needed, to talk about. Still, I was shocked by how many people were not only down to take the survey, but also to share the messy, shady, vulnerable bits of their experience — and willingly put their name and company next to it.

On the survey I created, there was an optional final question where people could add in anything they might want to share. A lot of people (and I mean a lot of people) wrote that taking the survey was cathartic. Most people don’t get the chance to emotionally digest their layoff because they’re immediately thrust into problem-solving the practical side of their lives (health insurance and paying the bills are what I hear over and over again as people’s top concerns when they’re laid off). Sharing about these layoff experiences and reading about them helped people to process and make the whole thing feel less isolating and less taboo. Layoffs can happen to anyone, and through this newsletter, I’ve interviewed people who have experienced them in all phases of life: I’ve spoken to people laid off on their birthdays, while caring for partners with cancer and after 26 years at a company. Gathering all these testimonials has really hammered home for me both how personal and universal the layoff experience is, and how important it is to break down the shame we might misalign with the experience.

The newsletter has been running for over a year now, and I’ve interviewed people from so many different industries, from media to tech to the FDA. The federal layoffs this year were really proof to me that no industry is immune from layoffs, and a lot of readers told me that my interviews with federal workers were some of the most devastating. The interview I did with Joya Patel, a former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services worker, has really stayed with me. Her layoff came right after RFK Jr. was confirmed as Trump’s health secretary, and hearing her story felt like being a fly on the wall during a historic moment.

As for Laid Off, what started as an idea in my kitchen has grown into a full-fledged community. There are over 11,000 readers, a dedicated Discord with over 1,000 members and a larger Laid Off community which now operates in a way that feels like an online mutual aid network. I constantly see Laid Off members lift each other up and offer support, whether that’s through connecting someone to a job lead, or giving them advice on their personal website. It gives me hope.

After speaking to hundreds of people who have been laid off, I’m heartened by what feels like a growing willingness to share these experiences. People are tired of working as hard as they can, without a promise of stability or recognition, and I think more than anything, hearing so many stories of people who have been laid off works to spotlight the cracks in our systems.

I think the most important thing I’ve learned about the experience of being laid off is how essential it is to find community. Community can help strip away the shame and isolation. Anyone can get laid off, but what makes the experience infinitely worse is feeling like you have to navigate it alone.