This Week in Jobs: Why Profitable Companies Keep Laying People Off

Cornering The Job Market · 2026-04-24 · 46 min

Episode notes

Profitable companies are handing out pink slips, and the explanations are starting to feel like a second insult. This week, we dig into Meta's 14,000 cuts, the wave rolling through Wall Street, and why "we're investing in AI" has become the corporate equivalent of it's not you, it's me , even when revenue and profits are healthy. The real damage isn't just in the headcount numbers. It's the widening trust gap between employers and workers, and what it does to how people plan their lives. Then we zoom out, and the view is unsettling. A Verizon CEO is forecasting 20 to 30% unemployment within five years. Layoffs are already baked into 2026 budgets. So why aren't warnings like these creating more urgency? We get into why so many people feel frozen and what it means when decision-makers are betting on AI to replace roles, even when the technology is still half-baked. From there, we connect the dots to two slow-motion crises most people feel but rarely name out loud: retirement insecurity and early-career collapse. Older workers are postponing retirement not by choice, but out of necessity.

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