About LaidOffCircle

Why LaidOffCircle exists

A layoff is rarely just a change of employer. It affects income, identity, plans and relationships, and it often happens to many people at once, with very little structure to help afterwards. The advice people receive tends to be generic, and the most useful help usually comes from someone who has recently been through the same thing, or who works at a company that is hiring.

LaidOffCircle is built to connect those people. It is a community where members can talk openly about what is happening, share what they are learning, offer and request employee referrals, and keep up with what is happening across the workforce. Our tagline, Laid off, not disconnected, describes the aim: that nobody has to work through a career disruption alone.

Who it is for

• People who have been laid off or who expect to be, and want practical information and company from others in the same position.
• Job seekers and career changers looking for roles, introductions and honest advice about specific companies and industries.
• Employees who can help, including those at companies that are hiring, who are willing to refer capable people and share what they know.
• Anyone following the market, including recruiters, managers and researchers who want a grounded picture of layoffs and hiring.

What you can do here

Conversations

Share updates, questions and experiences in the feed. Posts can include up to six photos, a poll, formatted text and links, and can be organised by topic and hashtag. You can comment, reply, react, repost, quote a post with your own commentary, and post anonymously when a subject is sensitive. Posts and comments you write can be edited later, and edited content is marked as such.

Referrals

Employees can list roles they are able to refer people for, with the company, location, work arrangement, level, skills and a link to the job description. Job seekers can filter by those criteria and send a request containing only what the referrer asked for, including a résumé, which is visible to the referrer only. Requests can be withdrawn, and referrers can be rated on how helpful they were.

Your network

Follow people whose posts you find useful, send connection requests, and manage your connections from a single page. Suggestions are based on people you are not yet connected to, so that the network keeps growing in directions you choose.

Messages

Talk privately with your connections and other members through live one-to-one conversations with typing indicators and read receipts. Chats open in a window beside whatever you are doing, so you do not lose your place.

Workforce insights

Browse layoff reports and trends by company and month, add reports of your own, and add companies that are missing from the directory so that others can find them. The figures are contributed and reviewed by the community, so each report should link to a source where one exists.

Search and discovery

Search across posts, referrals, people, companies and topics, or search for a hashtag to see everything tagged with it. Trending topics show what the community is talking about.

Principles we work by

• Free to ask, free to give. Referrals are never sold. Anyone asking for payment in exchange for access or a promised outcome is breaking our rules and will be removed.
• Honesty over polish. We would rather members share accurate, imperfect information than confident guesses. Sources are encouraged and misrepresentation is not tolerated.
• Privacy by default. Documents you send to a referrer are kept private to that person, direct messages are visible only to participants, and you decide whether a post carries your name.
• Respect, including in disagreement. People here are often under stress. We expect members to be generous with each other.
• Accountability. Standards are published, reports are reviewed by people, and members can appeal decisions.

How the community is looked after

Any member can report a post or comment, and our team reviews reports and acts where the Community guidelines have been broken. Depending on the severity, that can mean a reminder or warning email, a change to a post, removal of content, or a restriction on the account. We also verify email addresses at sign-up to reduce fake accounts and to make sure members can receive important updates.

Your information

We collect what is needed to run the service and nothing that we sell. The Privacy policy explains what we collect, who can see it, which providers help us operate the platform, how long we keep data and how to exercise your rights.

Contact

Questions, feedback, corrections to a company or layoff report, or concerns about content that you cannot report from inside the app can be sent to admin@laidoffcircle.com. We read everything.