How to manage rampant layoff anxiety

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Though feelings of layoff anxiety and declining workforce confidence are trends that are pronounced across industries, tech workers are feeling the pain more than others.

Engineering managers are having to quickly learn how to lead through an acute age of uncertainty.

A global confidence crisis

The technology sector has endured three years of unrelenting industry-wide layoffs, with upwards of 600,000 worldwide employees having lost their jobs since 2022, according to layoffs.fyi. 

In recent months, the continued threat of downsizing has been compounded by the high-profile political hijinks of Elon Musk and other top CEOs who have stripped away company DEI initiatives and threatened to automate as much of their coding labor as possible.

According to a new survey by the business-lending firm Clarify Capital, American tech workers are more worried about job security than those in any other industry. The research found that one in three U.S. workers feel anxious about being laid off in 2025, and one in ten say they have “no confidence” that they would be able to find a new job within three months. More broadly, Glassdoor reported a record low in its Employee Confidence Index in February.

In December, the Pew Research Center similarly reported that slightly more than half of U.S. workers say they would have a difficult time finding the kind of job they want if they were to look for it today, up from 37% in 2022. American workers’ confidence in finding and keeping a job is even lower than it was in the spring of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence survey.

While global unemployment rates are at a record low 5%, with the U.S. faring even better, late 2024 hiring rates were on par with the early 2010s, at the peak of the Great Recession. This pattern of low hiring despite robust employment levels is likely to not only stick around, but spread.

The International Labour Organization reported earlier this year that a global economic slowdown is poised to limit job creation in the medium-term, across industries and around the world. In addition, a wobbly U.S. stock market has some analysts predicting an imminent recession.

Standing in the middle of the disarray, scores of tech workers are already grappling with the implications of suddenly feeling expendable in the eyes of their employers. Discussions of low workplace morale, and layoff anxiety in particular, have become a mainstay of engineering forums and blogs. “The constant need to upskill, chase new tech stacks, and keep an eye on layoffs/recessions feels exhausting,” an engineer in India recently lamented on Reddit. “The fear of being laid off is paralyzing. Am I the only one feeling this way?” reads another recent post from a Reddit forum for women engineers.

It is likely not a coincidence that tech workers’ mental health is floundering. In a new report on workplace mental health across 119 global companies, the UK investment firm CCLA found that industry giants Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla all scored in the lowest tier of the assessment, while Amazon ranked in the second lowest.

Managers are far from immune from the distress. In a 2023 survey of 501 U.S. tech leaders by the mental health treatment company All Points North, 38% of tech managers reported experiencing increased anxiety and/or depression due to recent layoffs. In addition, 77% of tech managers said that layoffs had negatively affected their health, whether directly or indirectly. 

How to lead in a time of uncertainty

First and foremost, it is incumbent on managers to prioritize their own well-being. “Drawing firm boundaries, taking genuine breaks, and nurturing both mental and physical wellness are non-negotiable,” said Laura Nguyen, an executive coach and the author of Career Break Compass. “Just as vehicles require regular maintenance, leaders must replenish our energy to drive sustained success.” Nguyen recommends that managers block calendar time for rest and recreation throughout the day and week. 

Leaders who look after themselves are better positioned to look after their teams. And for better or worse, these challenging times call for empathetic and level-headed leaders more than ever. According to a survey of more than 6,700 employees by the workplace wellness firm, meQuilibrium, workers who feel well-supported by their managers are 63% more likely to trust management communications, 69% more likely to report strong trust among colleagues, and more than twice as likely to view workplace conflicts as fairly resolved. The survey also found a strong correlation between workers’ willingness to embrace organizational change and their sense of manager support. 

But what does supportive management look like when ‘organizational change’ translates to the potential loss of jobs? Sandy Goel, the founder of the workplace well-being consultancy Go Well Advisory, says it starts with frank communication. “Be as transparent as possible about what you know and don’t know,” Goel said. “Let your teams see you are on their side and doing what you can to support them with what you have.” That means giving team members clear, specific tasks to prioritize around. It also means allowing them the space to talk about their anxieties and share strategies with each other. 

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For Kevin Bussema – the founder and lead consultant for the nonprofit leadership consultancy, The Collaborative Collective – supportive management comes down to caring. “Caring leadership means addressing issues head-on, not avoiding tough conversations,” Bussema said. “Leaders must communicate.”

As Bussema sees it, the onus is on managers to communicate to team members about what’s happening in the company at-large. Echoing Goel, Bussema agrees that even if the manager has no new information about potential staffing changes, or any other unwanted developments that may be coming down the pipeline, sharing what they do and don’t know will build trust. 

“At the end of the day, managers ensure their teams feel a sense of belonging and confidence that they’ll be told the truth,” Bussema said. “Layoff anxiety thrives in silence.”