Just before the global financial crisis in 2007, I decided to work abroad in Shanghai. I was 23, still looking for a career path and wanting to see the world too, so China seemed like the perfect adventure. Coincidently, one year later, and just as that economic crisis peaked, I also learned that the employer would not renew my contract. I was let go.
It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. I enjoyed the work, had strong performance reviews, and was appreciated by colleagues. So I was struck by a chaotic mix of emotions: shock, anger, sadness… and the confusing terror of suddenly being alone in a foreign country. Should I stay? Should I go? Where? To do what? How? I experienced crying fits that I couldn’t explain.
It's only now that I see that this displacement touched something much deeper… I lost my sense of self worth, my purpose, identity, and social connection. I wasn’t part of a group anymore. It felt as if all the collegial friendships, energy, and projects… meant nothing, as if my very personhood wasn’t wanted.
Layoffs are a kind of corporate exile.
Mass layoffs are now an everyday economic phenomenon; inflated by over-hiring during the pandemic, exacerbated by economic strain and the rise of AI. Tech companies alone have cut tens of thousands of roles, as automation eats into “safe” white-collar work, and investors demand ever more efficiency.
Despite my personal experience, I had grown numb to such headlines. I was only reminded recently, having witnessed the immediate devastation of a friend’s layoff… the uncontrollable tears, shame, and questions. Mass layoffs aren’t simply cost centers wiped off a balance sheet, but a disruption of actual human lives, thousands of them, many with families; each now facing an uncertain future, exiled from their tribe.
We don’t often speak of layoffs as exile, but that’s essentially what it is... you’re suddenly unwanted, separated from community, purpose, and rhythm. Gone are all the small rituals: showing up at the same place, seeing the same faces, sharing the same jokes. Cut off, overnight, from a daily rhythm that once tethered you. The calendar goes blank. The phone stops buzzing. The inbox quiets.
And in that silence, you start to question: who am I now? Who am I when I don’t have that title? Not part of a team, department, brand? Who am I without those built-in identities?
After my layoff, I wanted to fill all those hours of emptiness... I took Chinese classes, any freelance gig I could find, and moved to a cheaper apartment. While I stayed busy, there was still an underlying fog to my days. I was in a state of drift for months, maybe years. I wasn’t sure where I was going, or who I was becoming, having neither anchor nor direction.
Eventually though, I started to feel like “myself” again.
There wasn’t a single “aha” moment. Just a slow, gradual re-emergence... a drive to make changes, to interview for jobs, to rebuild something new. Bit by bit, I pieced together a rhythm that grounded me in a solid new reality.
One friend became two, two became three and soon, a community. Similarly, one gig turned into two, and eventually into a portfolio of work. I no longer had any title or larger brand attached to me, but I saw the value of being just myself, as amorphous as that was. Each step built on the last, even if I couldn’t see it at the time.
Now, when I think back, I can see the gift hidden in that exile. It freed me from the illusion of stability. It showed me that corporate systems — no matter how warm, how much talk about “family” there is, are still temporary. People move on. Contracts end. Priorities shift.
I slowly learned to take on the responsibilities — of identity, self worth and community — that I unconsciously and wrongly expected the job to bestow onto me.
And if I zoom out even further, I see we’ve already experienced many small exiles throughout life. We leave school, move out of the family home, graduate university, change jobs, switch industries, move cities, maybe countries. Every time, we are saying goodbye to a version of ourselves... and to the people who mirrored that identity back to us.
Hopefully we get to leave by choice, but sometimes, the choice is made for us. What’s most important is the internal experience we create — the growth, the insights, the skills, the love of the craft — that part stays with us. That’s ours to carry forward.
Layoffs will continue to be a feature of the modern economic system. If we don’t already, soon we will all know someone on the wrong side of this experience. If you’ve just been laid off, don’t let this moment define you. Because all work is temporary and an identity built on such fragile foundation is bound to break.
Sure, do acknowledge the feelings... the sadness, the anger, the disbelief... but don’t stay there. This is your exile, but it’s also your freedom. Freedom to rethink what you want, who you are, and how you want to contribute next.
Over the next few days, weeks and maybe months take your time to reflect deeply, then rebuild boldly. Rebuild your identity. Rebuild your community. Rebuild your rhythm on this new grounded reality.
Then in the future, you’ll remember this event not as a collapse, but as a quiet turning point between who you were and who you are becoming. And maybe one day, when you meet a friend going through their own layoff, you’ll be there… to welcome them into this community… on the other side of exile.
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Update: In the month since initially drafting this reflection, another friend shared the news of their layoff... and then soon after that, yet another. I fear more disruptions are coming. The good news is that some handle it better than others, but do reach out to your friends, colleagues, and support each other. This is the time to do it.