3 Essential Skills You Need To Survive Layoffs In 2025

Forbes

16-04-2025

Many workers are opting for the Great Stay out of fear of the volatile job market.
Remember the Great Resignation of 2021? Well, it's 2025. Welcome to the Great Stay.
The Great Stay, coined by My Perfect Resume's Great Stay Report, is a workplace trend in 2025 that is based on worry and anxiety about job loss stemming from the recent rounds of mass layoffs.
February 2025 saw the highest number of layoffs since the pandemic within a single month. A major contributing factor to this has been federal layoffs, which have been high profile and is resulting in many workers feeling uneasy about the security of their roles and finances this year.
According to the MyPerfectResume report, which polled more than 1,100 professionals, four in five U.S. workers fear that they'll lose their jobs in 2025. Around '20% feel much more worried about job loss than last year,' the survey revealed, adding, 'Anxiety about job security is at an all-time high, pushing workers to reassess their career strategies and financial plans for the year ahead.'
But you don't need to live in fear. Even though you can't control job cuts, what you can control is how recession-proof and in-demand you are. You can control how much your career and income continue to grow, and to what extent you remain in demand, even as companies are in the process of restructuring teams and realigning their priorities.
The following three skills will help your career survive layoffs in 2025. This doesn't mean you'll be immune to your role being eliminated. However, what this does mean is that these skills will enable you to be resilient and not feel the blow as hard because you'll already have other systems and income streams in place.
Your personal brand is a bit like your career's insurance policy. It stands behind your name, builds trust, and enables people to see your value and take a 'risk' on you, even if they've never yet viewed your resume or worked with you before.
Therefore, your personal brand must be compelling enough and data-driven enough for decision-makers to want to hire or collaborate with you. Personal brand is more than aesthetics (although color schemes, your personal voice, and photoshoots do play a role in defining how people view you).
It's all about having a strong, visible, active presence online, building thought leadership, and showcasing tangible results that loudly say, 'I deliver XYZ.'
Small action step today: Rewrite your LinkedIn headline to reflect who you are, who you help, and the results you've already delivered.
No, scrolling your LinkedIn news feed and commenting, 'I agree,' or 'I'm interested' under posts is not networking. Even having random coffee chats and 1,000 generic LinkedIn connections does not equate to effective networking.
Networking is a skill that requires strategy and intention. You need to figure out who can add value to your career and connect with these people. Find decision-makers and people who know and work closely with them. Add these professionals to your LinkedIn network and engage with them on their posts, not by posting some lame AI-generated comments, but by actually contributing something that is thoughtful and adds value.
You might have heard the statistic that about 70% of jobs are never posted online. This is why it's called the hidden job market, because most jobs never meet the public eye. Instead, they're filled through referrals and strategic networking.
Therefore, if you build this skill now, then in the event that a round of layoffs hit you, you'll be able to bounce back faster because you can tap into your network, where you have been planting seeds and nurturing the relationship for months.
Small action step today: Identify a shortlist of 10 people of influence who are in your industry and connect with them on LinkedIn. Then engage thoughtfully on at least one post each day.
You don't necessarily need to quit your job to create multiple income streams, but what you do need is to think outside the box of your current position, and consider ways that you can turn one specific skill or area of domain expertise into several income streams, such as freelance consulting, teaching, digital products, and other specialized services.
If there's anything that the layoffs this year have taught us, it's this: Relying on just one source of income is a dangerous game. The job market is too volatile to put all your eggs into one basket. Through diversifying your skill set and consequently your income sources, you give yourself options to fall back on, should one of them collapse. This gives you greater buying power and leverage in the job market, and equips you with the confidence to walk away from opportunities that do not serve you.
Small action step today: Make a list of three things that you're super skilled or knowledgeable in, then research ways to monetize them online.
You don't need to stay in a job that you're not happy in, just because you're worried that they're your only lifeline in an uncertain economy and job market. Develop these three skills today, and start by taking the small action steps recommended for each, and be consistent with them.
Are you hoping for the best that your role will stick around? Or are you reclaiming control of your career and building skills that will make you undeniably in-demand?
Saying 'I agree' or writing an AI-generated comment is not strategic networking.