How To Talk About Your Layoff Without Damaging Your Career

Forbes

8 hours ago

Layoffs eliminated over 221,000 jobs in Q1 2025, hitting government, tech, retail, accounting, ... More manufacturing and logistics sectors the hardest.
Layoffs continue to impact a range of sectors with large-scale ripple effects, hitting government, tech, retail, accounting, manufacturing and logistics the hardest. More than 221,812 jobs were eliminated within the first quarter of the year. Economists at Deloitte have cited ongoing economic turmoil, federal funding cuts, tariffs, decelerated consumer spending, AI's widespread impact and cost-cutting measures as contributing factors.
According to Clarify Capital's 2025 survey of 1,000 Americans, one in three people have anxiety about layoffs. Building job security and 'career insurance' for ourselves involves preparing for layoffs, including knowing how to talk about being laid off. Here are three tips to help you navigate this challenging situation—including 6 ways to discuss your layoff positively.
When Layoffs Hit, Separate Role Elimination From Personal Performance
The first thing to do is make sure you don't internalize your layoff as something that reflects poorly on you personally. Layoffs are business decisions that are fundamentally different from firing someone for poor performance. Mass layoffs impact multiple teams or departments—often stripping teams down to a 'skeleton crew' or eliminating them entirely. When layoffs occur across the board, companies are making structural changes—not assessing individual skill, ability or value.
The first negotiation is with yourself: don't conflate the elimination of your role with personal performance issues. If you do, this will negatively impact how you position and present yourself for your next role.
Take Time To Regroup Before Going Full-Force With Your Job Search
You may feel the temptation to dive straight into a full-on job search. Resist that urge. If you don't take the time to process what happened and determine how you will intentionally move forward, you will continue to operate in a reactionary state of 'fight or flight,' which does not bode well for a successful job search.
Take what time you can to regroup. Decide on a timeline and create a structure for this period of strategic reflection and planning to make the most of it.
If you absolutely cannot take weeks to plan your next career moves, build in 'micro' breaks daily to process your emotions and avoid bottling them up. Even five or fifteen minutes a day to ground yourself and ensure that you don't internalize your layoff as a judgment on—or reflection of—you personally will help sustain your transition into your next role.
Taking the time to prevent emotions from negatively impacting your job search will pay off as you transition into full-on job searching when it's time.
How To Talk About Your Layoff
When you share with your network that you're available for new opportunities, you don't need to mention the layoff unless the topic comes up naturally. However, if you're asked directly about why you left your previous role, be honest—never hide or lie about it. If you do discuss the layoff, frame it properly.
Instead of saying, 'I was laid off,' or 'I was let go,' try: 'My role was eliminated as part of a company-wide restructuring,' 'My position was eliminated during a departmental reorganization,' or 'The organization underwent strategic changes that impacted multiple departments.'
You can also reference business model changes or external forces: 'The company pivoted their business model and underwent a full reorg,' 'Due to industry changes, the company restructured several teams,' or 'The company underwent a merger and consolidated roles across departments.'
The bottom line: layoffs reflect company-wide changes, decisions and shifts—not individual performance.
Your Layoff Is Redirection, Not A Setback
Layoffs have become an unavoidable reality in today's working world. While you can't control when they happen, you can still control your ability to process, respond and frame the experience of a layoff—both to yourself and to others.
As anxiety-provoking and destabilizing as navigating layoffs may feel, what you offer the world through your efforts and labor is far greater than any one job or role. Sometimes external factors force our hand and push us toward opportunities that align better with our path. The unknown can be terrifying, even paralyzingly so. Yet it may also reveal possibilities that are perfectly suited to where you're meant to be—opportunities you might never have pursued otherwise.