So you got laid off. What next?

Life Kit

NPR

Health & Fitness, Self-improvement, Kids & Family, Education, Business

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Whether you saw it coming or were completely blindsided, getting laid off is one of the most stressful experiences in life. It can also be a huge hit to your mental health, making it even harder to focus on logistics. This episode, we lay out concrete next steps for the first day, week, month and onward after a layoff. That includes how to find health insurance, apply for unemployment and create a job search plan.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Ira Glass of This American Life.
0:02.2	Each week on our show, we choose a theme,
0:04.7	tell different stories on that theme.
0:07.3	All right, I'm just going to stop right there.
0:08.8	You're listening to an NPR podcast.
0:10.2	Chances are you know our show.
0:11.9	So instead, I'm going to tell you,
0:14.4	we've just been on a run of really good shows lately.
0:17.5	Some big, epic emotional stories,
0:19.6	some weird, funny stuff too. Download us,
0:22.7	This American Life. You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey, it's Mariel. Today we're talking
0:31.6	about one of the more difficult things that can happen in your career, layoffs. So often our jobs are more than just a paycheck.
0:40.3	They may be how we access health insurance, and for better or worse, they can be deeply
0:44.6	connected to our identities as a person, how we see ourselves, who we spend time with.
0:49.7	If you're at a job for long enough, you may have a lot of friends there. And then one day, suddenly, maybe unexpectedly, it all ends.
0:59.4	Octavia Gorodima is a career coach, an author of the book Prep, Push, Pivot.
1:04.2	She's worked with folks across industries at Fortune 500 companies, at startups,
1:08.9	and she's had clients who've been laid off.
1:11.4	If that's happened to you, here's the first thing Octavia wants you to know.
1:15.4	Know that you are worthy.
1:19.8	This has got nothing to do with your worth.
1:22.8	This is an actual business problem, not a you problem.
	...

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