This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Meghan Soman, a 41-year-oldcontract events consultant who previously served as the director of events and trade marketing at a cinema advertising company. She is based in Long Island. Her identity and background have been verified by Business Insider. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I started working at a cinema advertising company in 2007 and eventually became the director of events and trade marketing.
When the CEO held a virtual town hall in 2020 and said there needed to be layoffs, I knew I would be one of the first to go because I served zero purpose at that point. Nobody was going to events or getting together.
Roughly15 minutes after that meeting, I got a phone call from my boss and he laid of me off.
The president of sales at the time called me and told me they wanted to bring me in as a consultant to help with smaller virtual events. He said it wouldn’t be a lot of money, but they loved me and wanted to keep me on. So I did consulting work for them for the next year and a half.
They hired me back full-time in 2022 and I worked there until January 2024. Then I was laid off again, a week after coming back from maternity leave for my son.
A gut punch
The second layoff was a gut punch. I had an hourlong meeting on the books with my boss, and I thought we were going to plan out our year. I had just finished my personal assessment and was going to ask for a promotion. I walked into the meeting with my laptop and notebook, ready to get back to work. Then I saw the HR in the room.
It was such a rush of emotion. By the time I got back to my desk, I had been locked out already. I know that’s protocol for a lot of layoffs, but it hurt. I called my husband in the building lobby and had a bit of a breakdown. Then I went home and sat on my couch in shock.
The first layoff was easier because the entire world was in the same boat. The second time, even though it was part of a larger layoff, it messed with my head.
It hurt more to be included in this layoff because I had gone on maternity leave and given them a 10-page playbook on how to do my job. It made me wonder if it would have happened if I hadn’t done that?
I was looking for event jobs after the layoff, but I wasn’t hearing back from 99% of the companies I applied to. It got to a point where I thought maybe I wasn’t meant to do that job anymore. I thought I failed at events, and that led me to take a completely different kind of role that fell into my lap.
My cousin’s next-door neighbor had an independent record label and hired me as a bookkeeper. I did that for a year and a half. It was cool to learn a completely different industry and I love live music — but it was not the role I was meant to be doing.
I stayed longer than I should have because my boss was an easygoing guy, and he understood if daycare called and I had to pick up my kid. But I realized I’m meant to do events. It’s what I love.
Don’t let layoffs deter you
I felt a sense of loyalty to the company and I thought that there was a sense of loyalty to long-term employees. Once the fog cleared, though, I realized it was a different group, different management, and different circumstances than when I started.
I understand now that it’s a company — and their main goal is to make money and appease shareholders. It sucks, and it still hurts every once in a while, but I’ve moved on.
It feels personal, and it is. It’s your livelihood, and it’s something that, in my case, I thought I was meant to be doing. But they’re just looking to trim the fat. You have to accept that and compartmentalize it.
It took me a couple of years to realize I did not fail at events — and people shouldn’t let a layoff deter them from what they want to do. I know now that I was part of a layoff and these things happen. Now I’m trying again.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Robin Peppers Daniel, a job seeker in her early 60s who lives in South Carolina. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Last April, I received a notification that I had 30 minutes before I would lose all of my work access — and that within an hour, I would receive some paperwork. Then my boss called me with the news: I, along with several colleagues, had been laid off.
I was working for Wells Fargo in a management role, and had some suspicion that a layoff was coming. This wasn’t my first layoff. In 2018, I was laid off from Walmart, where I worked as an instructional design manager.
A little over a year later, I started working for Wells Fargo as an external regulatory reporting consultant and was later promoted to a lead control management officer role.
My last working day at Wells Fargo was in April, but I was technically still employed and received paychecks through mid-June, followed by a few months of severance. Nearly a year after being laid off, I’m still looking for a full-time role.
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My search strategies haven’t landed me a role so far
After some reorganization about a year earlier, there was redundancy in certain areas, and I felt like my workload started to dry up. My husband and I decided to start financially preparing, which proved to be beneficial.
I’d already been casually looking for work, partially because I’d felt for a while that the role wasn’t a good fit for me. But it wasn’t until I was laid off that I updated my LinkedIn profile, and not until around June that I began actively searching for roles. I was initially focused on banking and corporate trainer roles, but I’ve become open to any position where my skills are transferable.
In terms of my job search strategies, I adopted the “open to work” banner on LinkedIn and posted that I was seeking work, which helped me connect with people who said they’d be open to referring me for roles. I’ve also tried looking for job postings on company websites rather than only on LinkedIn, where I’ve found that some postings can be outdated.
Despite these strategies, I was still struggling to land a job. There was one opportunity last year that I thought might work out. I had a referral from a former coworker who said she’d spoken about me to the hiring manager. After three interviews, I waited several weeks and eventually heard they were going in another direction.
I pick up substitute teaching shifts when I can, but I’m still unemployed
My husband and I have enough savings to be financially stable for roughly the next 18 months. In a perfect world, I would retire and get out of this work rat race, but right now, I unfortunately can’t afford to.
Last August, I applied to be a substitute teacher in my area so I could have some form of income once my unemployment benefits ran out.I used to substitute teach when my daughter was preschool age, and I enjoyed it.
However, I had to be very strategic about taking on substitute work. I live in South Carolina, but I worked in North Carolina — and was therefore subject to that state’s unemployment system. In North Carolina, you can earn a maximum of $350 a week in unemployment benefits for up to 12 weeks — $4,200 total. You can also earn up to $70 a week without impacting your unemployment check.
A full week of substitute teaching paid about $550, and depending on how many days I was needed, I had to make sure what I’d gain in income would offset what I’d lose that week in unemployment benefits.
I’m now considering teaching full-time
I’m pursuing an alternative teaching pathway in South Carolina that would eventually allow me to work as a full-time teacher after the initial testing is complete. The salary wouldn’t be what I earned in banking, but it would allow me to do something that I enjoy.
I’ve also started exploring part-time options that could hopefully provide me with income and benefits, including a small web design business my husband and I have run for years and a small skincare products business.
Read more about people who’ve found themselves at a corporate crossroads
I’ve realized this could be a really long-term unemployment spell
During much of my job search, I was fairly optimistic because I’d previously found full-time jobs through my network. Over time, I’ve realized that I could be unemployed for a while.
I think my age might be holding me back in my job search, and that some employers view me as overqualified, given my past work experience and education. As a result, I’ve been conscious of the way I present and talk about my experience level.
Nowadays, I’m only half-heartedly looking for full-time work. If a job posting has more than 100 applicants, I don’t apply. I’ve resigned myself to semi-retirement.
If I have any advice for struggling job seekers, it’s that tapping into my network and family has been the biggest help for me, even if it hasn’t led to a job yet. I’ve had some former coworkers — more acquaintances than friends — reach out to tell me about jobs. I really believe that in this market — where AI might be the one reviewing your résumé — it’s all about networking.
Cindy Sheahan was at a crossroads. Friends and loved ones were passing away, and her marriage was starting to unravel. She could feel life passing her by — and after years spent raising her kids, she decided it was finally time to put herself first.
“I figured I’d start traveling abroad,” Sheahan, 64, told Business Insider. “My company was kind enough to let me take a sabbatical while I sorted out my world. It turned out to be a mistake for them, because I decided I wasn’t coming back.”
Over the last several years, Sheahan, now divorced, has traveled to nearly 50 countries, including Laos, Portugal, Madagascar, Turkey, and Vietnam. In 2025, she made Palermo, Sicily, her home base. And while she plans to visit the US from time to time, she says she won’t be moving back anytime soon.
“I feel like I outgrew a lot of people and places in the US,” Sheahan said. “Don’t get me wrong — I desperately miss my friends and family, especially my kids. But they’re all able to travel, and they’d much rather visit me somewhere fun than grab a drink at a bar in Denver.”
In Italy, she added, “I eat better, I’ve made new friends, I’ve cut down on expenses — and most importantly, I’m happy.”
More people are moving out of the US, and fewer are moving in
Census Bureau data shows that net international migration — essentially, arrivals minus departures — hit a high of 2.7 million in 2024. By July 2025, that number had dropped to 1.3 million, and if the current trajectory holds, the Bureau forecasts it could fall again to about 321,000 in 2026.
“If those trends continue, it would be the first time the United States has seen net negative migration in more than 50 years,” the Bureau said on its website.
The Bureau attributes the change to two trends moving in opposite directions: fewer people immigrating to the US, and more people leaving the country to live abroad.
Over the past few years, I’ve spoken with more than a dozen Americans — most of them women — about why they moved abroad. Many mention the same mix of reasons: the US has become too expensive, and they want to step away from work and build lives that feel more meaningful. It led them to places like Panama, Spain, Albania, and France.
Cepee Tabibian, a Spain-based relocation coach who has helped many Americans move overseas, told Business Insider that a growing number of her female clients are also worried about the political climate in the States.
“Before, I think people just wanted to move for a better quality of life; to fulfill a dream, to have a softer life. But now a lot of things that are coming up for people are related to the political situation,” she said.
Here are the stories of four women I spoke with about why they left the US and how their lives have changed since, for better and worse.
High living costs have pushed some women out
You’ve probably noticed how much more expensive life in the US has gotten. Data show consumer prices are up about 25% since 2020. For older single women, that can make it especially hard to get by, particularly when Social Security is their main source of income.
For Sheahan, moving abroad was partially a financial decision. She has savings and investments, but in retirement, her most dependable income is the $1,500 she receives each month in Social Security. In Denver, that wouldn’t have covered rent. In Palermo, it pays for her $800-a-month apartment and still leaves room for groceries and nights out.
“I love that I can go to the grocery store and not break the bank. You can buy tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, sundried tomatoes, and everything else for a song,” she said. Healthcare has been cheaper for her, too; seeing a specialist costs her about $40.
Sandy Adam and the Eiffel Tower.
Sandy Adam/ Getty Images/ Elena Zolotova
Sandy Adam can relate. After she was laid off from her tech job in 2025, she was unable to find another role and retired. But the idea of living on just her $3,608-a-month Social Security benefit back in Pittsburgh made her nervous — especially with annual property taxes of about $6,900 on her 1,700-square-foot home.
“I asked myself: If I tried to live off Social Security, could I afford to stay in that house? I probably could, but it would be really tight,” Adam, 69, said. “Long-term, though, the financial predictability felt increasingly uncertain — my everyday living expenses like groceries were going up too. I wanted to simplify my life, with fewer fixed costs and fewer surprises.”
She decided moving to Europe was “more practical” than trying to make it work in the US.
She now lives in Chatou, a suburb of Paris, renting a 548-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment with her dog. She pays $1,679 a month, and while she says it still feels a little expensive, it’s given her “a soft landing” while she figures out where she ultimately wants to settle.
Some women want to reinvent themselves
For many women on the cusp of retirement, moving overseas also gives them a chance to reinvent themselves.
“It’s not just living your same exact life in a different destination,” Tabibian said. “A lot of women who come to me want to quit their jobs and maybe spend some time re-getting to know themselves, or take the time to try something different.”
Natalie Lynch and her dog Enzo.
Courtesy of Natalie Lynch
Natalie Lynch had been working since she was 15. Burned out and priced out of the Bay Area, she decided to wind down her home-staging business of 24 years and move to Europe in 2024, hoping for a more relaxed and purposeful life, not to mention a lower cost of living.
“The pandemic, with its loss of freedom, loss of connectivity, and the very clear message that life can be short, was a real wake-up call for me,” Lynch, 56, told Business Insider. “I decided I needed to make some big changes, even if I didn’t have a clear idea of what the endgame would look like.”
Her time in Europe hasn’t been perfect.
She’s bounced between Italy, Spain, and, most recently, France. With only her dog, Enzo, as her travel companion, she’s felt lonely at times, and navigating European bureaucracy has been challenging — especially since she isn’t fluent in Spanish or French. Still, she said, escaping her hectic life and the rising costs back home has been life-changing.
“While I don’t think I’m living my best life here, it’s a better life than I had in California, so I’m headed in the right direction,” she said. “I haven’t figured it all out yet, but the slower pace of life, not having to grind every day running a business, and being out of the rat race has been a huge gift.”
Dawn Belisle moved to France after training as a pastry chef.
Courtesy of Dawn Belisle
After gifting herself a birthday trip to Paris in 2019 — complete with a French baking workshop — Dawn Belisle, an attorney and part-time pastry chef from Atlanta, fell so in love with France that she moved there in 2022.
“My spirit felt at peace there in a way that’s hard to describe,” Belisle, 56, told Business Insider. “Everyone was just living. They’re out and about, enjoying each other’s company. They sit at cafés, eating and drinking together. They don’t have the same hustle-and-bustle culture we have in the US.”
Belisle now lives in the Carré d’Or, one of Nice’s pricier, livelier neighborhoods. She spends her days walking the beach, shopping local markets for fresh produce, and lingering at cafés with her French and Italian friends.
She continues to work as an attorney, consulting with a couple of offices, but France has also opened the door to her second act: creating a lifestyle brand where she posts style and travel content and mentors people considering a move abroad. It’s given her a new sense of purpose.
“The peace I have in France is unbeatable,” Belisle said. “I still do a lot and keep a schedule, but I feel more in control of my life here. I’m living to live instead of work, and I’m exploring more. To me, that’s success.”
Madison Hoff, a reporter on Business Insider’s economy team, contributed to this article.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Isaac Casanova, who has worked at Block for nearly three years as a senior software engineer. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I wasn’t even looking at my computer at the time. One of my good friends started spam calling me. I picked up the phone, and he told me to check my email.
I read the email from Jack Dorsey, and I was like, whoa, I guess I don’t have a role anymore.
We were well aware that rolling layoffs were underway. Most people assumed it would be capped at 1,000. I didn’t feel like anything big like that was coming. For it all to happen at once like that is obviously a shock.
I never got a low rating. In my conversations with folks, I was doing fine. That’s why it’s characterized as a layoff, not a performance thing. This is just a change in business direction.
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Check your ego — the industry is tough
I’m managing my expectations as I look for work.
It seems like companies are tighter with headcount and more picky about who they want.
There are definitely fewer positions. Companies are doing more with less. These agents are automating some tasks and are slowly improving at understanding concepts.
The compensation is definitely lower. We’re hearing across the industry that stock grants are lower than they used to be. Refresher grants are lower. Bonuses — if they exist.
Once you get in, it’s stack-ranked performance management. Your output is compared to your peers from day one. It’s definitely tougher.
You’ve got to check your ego. That might be the part people struggle with more than their technical ability.
Separate your identity from your job
At the end of the day, companies are beholden to shareholders.
Jack’s memo came across as what someone in that position making a tough decision would say. A call was made, and it had to be communicated. I don’t have any negative feelings about anybody that I worked with or at the company.
The biggest expense of running an organization is employees. The higher you are — senior engineer, engineering manager, head of product — the more expensive you are.
You need to remember that and evaluate your relationship with work. Many people in these positions tie their identity to their jobs. Those are the people most affected when these things happen.
You try not to take it personally. You see it as a new opportunity. There’s a human aspect — you just lost your job, and it kind of sucks for a bit — but you can’t let it hold you down. You can’t let it define you. These things happen, and you need to adjust.
The good thing about when these things happen is the network of people that you’ve met. Build the network so that when things like this happen, you can maneuver.
Be flexible — AI is changing the role
You could tell on the inside that things were changing.
A couple of years ago, I was doing most of the coding by hand. That slowly turned into using interfaces like Cursor, Claude Code, Goose, and ChatGPT. You’d slowly read things internally like, “Let’s speed up.” You were expected to speed up because the agents could make you more productive.
You’d have conversations with some of your colleagues and be like, “I haven’t opened my IDE in a month.” As a software engineer, that’s definitely a shift.
AI turns you from a person who just turns out code into more of an experimenter — a builder.
Software engineering, for a long time, was so by the letter, by the design, by the spec. Exact and precise, but slow.
Now we have these tools, the industry expects you to move fast. You can shift your mindset from that rigid engineering, step-by-step, to more of an exploratory “attack the problem, solve it, refine it later.”
Don’t get too trapped in the domain that you’re working in. Block tended to hire specialists who could also generalize when needed. So, be flexible. Using these tools allows you to get context in areas that you might not have had the opportunity to work in.
Do you have a story to share about tech layoffs? Contact this reporter at cmlee@businessinsider.com or on Signal at cmlee.81.
Jack Dorsey said he’s still hiring for his fintech company Block — even after he just laid off 40% of its workforce.
The cofounder said during an earnings call on Thursday that he expects to bring in more senior AI engineering talent to the team. The company’s stock was up nearly 23% after trading hours as of 7 p.m. Eastern Time.
On Thursday, Dorsey said in a memo to employees that Block was cutting its head count from 10,000 people to “just under 6,000.” The reason, he said, was because AI is unlocking “a new way of working” with “smaller and flatter teams.”
“We’re not making this decision because we’re in trouble. Our business is strong. Gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving,” Dorsey wrote in the memo. “But something has changed.”
Dorsey said in an earnings call on Thursday that AI tools have increased productivity at the company with a 40% increase in production code shipment per engineer since September.
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“We’ve seen engineering work that would have taken weeks to complete be done by a small team in a fraction of the time with agentic coding tools,” he said.
Despite the layoffs, Dorsey said during the call that Block expects to invest in hiring.
“We see meaningful opportunity to invest in our people and invest in hiring, invest in retaining a world-class team to deliver for our customers; ultimately, we expect to hire some more senior AI engineering talent who will continue to level up our engineering and product capabilities,” he said.
Dorsey and a spokesperson for Block did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
AI’s impact is being felt across industries and roles, as companies find ways to automate work. One study by Stanford University researchers found that early-career positions in fields such as software engineering and customer service are on the decline.
Some workers have also said that their responsibilities have increased with AI. A software engineer told Business Insider that the simultaneous increase in productivity and workload is leading to “AI fatigue.”
