Long-serving employees are among the hardest workers to support through a layoff, and new research suggests most organizations are failing them in the separation process.
A survey of 900 workers laid off after five or more years of continuous service, conducted by outplacement firm Careerminds in April 2026, found that long-tenured employees arrive at separation deeply unprepared, frequently blindsided and carrying a financial fragility that makes a difficult transition significantly harder. “These employees arrive [on the job market] with dormant networks, out-of-date resumes and no experience in job hunting,” the report notes.
The dominant finding is how thoroughly the departure caught long-tenured employees off guard. More than two-thirds of these workers said they felt “blindsided” when their layoff was announced. Nearly a third said the news came with no hint that it was coming at all.
More than 7 in 10 workers believed their years of service would shield them from layoffs and more than half said they had turned down at least one other job offer before being let go.
The belief that loyalty buys protection has been an assumption in U.S. workplaces for decades. As a reference, the report points out how the federal workforce became the most visible example in recent years. Previously, government work was actively positioned as a stable career path until mass layoffs arrived.
Nearly half of the respondents lacked a resume or had one that was significantly out of date. Only 13.8% had a resume ready to send and more than half had a mostly or completely inactive professional network. These factors are the result of settled employment, where the need to maintain job-hunting readiness doesn’t exist because these loyal workers were focused on the job they had.
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The exit package didn’t match the relationship
For workers who had invested years in an organization, the terms of being let go often felt like salt in the wound. Nearly two-thirds said their tenure wasn’t reflected in how they were treated during the layoff process. Nearly half received no severance pay after five or more years of service, while outplacement support was offered to fewer than 4 in 10 workers and more than 63% received nothing to help them along their way: no career coaching, no resume help and no job search guidance.
The question of what a fair separation looks like for loyal workers is playing out in real time at some of the country’s largest employers. As HR Executive reported in April, Oracle’s mass layoff put severance design under scrutiny when the company offered four weeks of base pay plus one additional week per year of tenure, capped at 26 weeks. By contrast, tech firm Block included 20 weeks of base pay, one additional week per year of tenure, six months of healthcare coverage and a $5,000 transition stipend.
A long emotional recovery
When workers believe loyalty is a form of protection, losing a job tends to take a psychological toll. The survey found that more than half of respondents took longer than six months to emotionally process their layoff, and 1 in four took more than a year. The most common emotional experiences in the months following the layoff included financial stress, depression or persistent low mood and anxiety or panic.
In addition, workforce reductions are watched by the colleagues who survive the layoffs. How long-tenured workers are treated on the way out appears to represent what loyalty is worth inside the organization. The research bears this out, finding that more than half of surveyed workers said they are now less loyal to employers as a direct result of their layoff experience, and a quarter described themselves as significantly less loyal.
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