TikTok layoff videos pose risks for those posting them and employers
The following contribution is by Cristina Criddle. Cristina writes about technology for the FT and specialises in artificial intelligence and social media. She won gold at the MHP Group’s 30ToWatch journalism awards in 2023 for her technology reporting. Previously, she was a technology reporter at the BBC, where she presented on TV, radio and podcasts, as well as producing the documentary The Instagram Effect.
Gen Z workers posting layoff videos are trending – but they may damage their future prospects
An unexpected online meeting appeared on Heather Haynes’ calendar last April, sparking suspicions that she was at risk of being made redundant. In response, she picked up her phone and pressed record, capturing the moment she was made redundant in a video that would go on to attract 10 million views. “The lack of growth and declining revenue from our clients has negatively impacted our business beyond what we can sustain,” she was told. “It has forced us to make very difficult decisions to eliminate roles within the agency, [including] your role.”
In response, Haynes put her hands to her mouth in shock.
She realized the nature of the meeting and cried as she was told the news. Afterward, she grabbed her phone and stopped filming.
“I felt alone, and watching videos of layoffs helped me feel normal and that this is part and parcel of being in the corporate world.” Kelly Lim
Videos like this are now becoming common on social media, as more workers post their experiences and often record calls about their jobs being laid off.
More than 32,000 posts on TikTok now carry the hashtag “layoffs.” And the trend of making layoffs public, particularly among younger workers, has created new challenges for companies managing their public image.
A change driven by Gen Z
“The rise in social media posts about layoffs is part of a broader shift in the workplace driven by younger generations, particularly Gen Z,” says Katherine Loranger, chief people officer at Safeguard Global, a human resources software company.
“They are not afraid to voice their frustrations publicly, and ‘loud resignations’ on platforms like TikTok have become a viral trend.
These employees use social media to voice their opinions about toxic workplaces, poor management or unfair treatment, forcing companies to confront the spotlight,” she notes.
Kelly Lim, a tech sales worker in Singapore, regularly records “A Day in the Life” videos for TikTok and recorded a meeting where she was fired, which has racked up more than 10,000 likes. She says she decided to post it to inform her followers and demonstrate “how volatile it is to work in tech.”
“I was definitely hoping to cause a stir, as most TikTok layoff videos do well,” she adds.
“I felt lonely and watching layoff videos helped me feel normal and like this is part and parcel of being in the corporate world.”
TikTok commentator Kelly Lim wanted to show “how volatile it is to work in the tech sector”
Lim chose not to name her employer to avoid contract breaches, but others have been bolder, including the voice and names of meeting attendees and the company.
“In the age of social media, when everyone carries a camera in their pocket, employers need to be aware that any meeting, including those many would consider sensitive, can be recorded… [and] covert recordings are an increasingly common feature of the employment landscape,” says Lucy Gordon, a partner at Walker Morris, a law firm.
Under UK law, employees must be consulted before being fired to ensure a fair dismissal
In the US, there are fewer regulations, which vary by state and company size.
“Once an employee is notified or their employment is terminated, it is difficult to take action against them for breach of confidentiality or breach of contract when recorded meetings are shared publicly,” says Audrey Williams, an employment lawyer and partner at Keystone Law, but adds that there may be data protection or privacy rights that could be relied upon instead.
Deloitte, which has laid off hundreds of employees this year, has been mentioned in multiple videos
While, last year, massive cuts in the tech sector saw workers at Google and Meta film their perspectives as well.
No regrets: “This is going to put more pressure on companies,” says Cierra Desmaratti
Cierra Desmaratti racked up more than 71,000 views when she posted her story about being fired from Deloitte. She described it as an “intimidating environment” where she felt out of place and was expected to “work overtime.”
“I didn’t fit into the culture and I felt like I wasn’t authentic to myself and I couldn’t be myself with everyone,” she said in the video, holding a wine glass filled with water.
“Of course, nobody wants to get that surprise [dismissal] email, [but] I’ve never felt so peaceful,” she added.
Desmaratti tells the FT that she felt vulnerable making the video and that it was “like having a target on my back,” but that she has not faced retaliation from the company. She posted the video to empower others, she says, as she regretted not speaking out at the consultancy.
“Things are changing. Faces like mine are out there bravely”
“We are not just numbers that are brought to the table and can be dismissed. We are real people. And now this is going to put more pressure on companies.”
Deloitte says it does not discuss people’s work details “out of respect for privacy obligations.”
However, Margaret Buj, a recruiter and career coach, says that “while recording a layoff may provide short-term validation, it can hurt future career prospects. Employers may view the act of publicly sharing such experiences as a red flag, wondering whether the person will divulge confidential or internal information in the future.”
“I have worked for tech companies for almost two decades and, at least in the tech industry, being associated with a viral layoff story could make some companies hesitant to hire them, even if they are highly qualified in other ways,” Buj warns.
The harsh reality of posting your firing on TikTok
The following contribution is by Amanda Hoover is a general-affairs writer at WIRED. She previously wrote tech articles for Morning Brew and covered New Jersey state government for The Star-Ledger. She was born in Philadelphia, lives in New York, and holds a degree from Northeastern University.
Workers are posting their firing and termination meetings on TikTok, exposing a darker side of work life.
The layoffs in the tech sector keep coming. Workers are anxious and frustrated, as more than 400,000 people are estimated to have lost their jobs in the past two years. Younger workers, particularly Gen Z, are posting via TikTok.
People have been sharing day-in-the-life videos about how they were laid off, or videos of their company firing them, for more than a year.
Some post haunting countdowns documenting the moments after receiving the dreaded spontaneous calendar invite. Others share tears.
And still others circulate surreptitiously recorded clips of company-wide meetings or individual layoff calls.
A woman who lost her job at TikTok last year made a TikTok about stealing “company assets” (i.e. snacks) on her last day. By posting them, these workers make public moments that have long been private and often kept quiet by both employees and employers.
Last week, one such TikTok went viral. Brittany Pietsch posted a video taken while she was being laid off from a sales position at the security firm Cloudflare
She did not respond to an interview request from WIRED, but told The Wall Street Journal this week that she had no regrets about posting it and had already been contacted by other companies.
The trend speaks to the ways younger workers have pushed back against corporate demands but also sacrificed their own privacy in exchange for views.
Workplace content is huge on TikTok. Young employees care about finding work-life balance, social impact, and purpose.
All of these values are reflected in the way they post: They documented their “5-to-9 job before the 9-to-5,” started a quiet resignation campaign, and used TikTok to romanticize their early stints in the office as Covid-19 cases declined.
After flaunting the benefits, they’re now showing the reality of losing lucrative jobs in tech.
Some of these videos have made an impact
In 2021, the CEO of mortgage company Better.com apologized after a video of him firing hundreds of people went viral. Cloudflare’s CEO told X this week that while the company was not wrong in its firing decisions, “the mistake was not being kinder and more humane in the way we did.”
The company did not respond to a question from WIRED about how the video had affected company and employee trust in Cloudflare or whether it would handle these types of meetings differently in the future.
Other impacts are less specific
In some cases, the videos are being praised for destigmatizing layoffs, showing how common it is to lose a job and helping people connect.
But the trend of recording employers also points to another problem in the workplace: the erosion of trust. “Both sides just don’t trust each other as much as they used to,” says Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, a business association.
The trend speaks to the ways younger workers have pushed back against corporate demands but also sacrificed their own privacy in exchange for opinions.
Shifts toward remote work have allowed companies to conduct layoffs over Zoom
rather than in an office where colleagues can watch them clear their desks. “But workers are pushing back and saying, ‘I’m going to broadcast it,’” says Daniel Keum, an associate professor of management at Columbia Business School.
He believes this is not a short-sighted or accidental decision. “These are tech workers who tend to be highly educated,” Keum says.
“They’re being pretty strategic and calculating,” understanding that with so many people recently laid off, it’s a safer time to share that they’ve lost their jobs without being judged.
In Pietsch’s video, she pushes back against her firing, expressing the ways she sees herself as a valued employee. Many commenters both applauded her and criticized the way other Cloudflare employees responded to her.
Still, posting a firing isn’t always the perfect move. There are some legal concerns; laws on secret recordings vary by state.
And videos, if cut and edited in a way that shows the company in a false light, could lead to potential defamation cases, Taylor says.
Being vulnerable can help you
Other types of firing videos — where a person reacts immediately after a firing meeting, without sharing the video of the meeting — can have a completely different effect, Taylor says.
Being vulnerable “can actually help you” network and showcase your skills to future employers. But those who are bitter and vent or post to take advantage of their companies might have a harder time building rapport with new employers. “You could win the battle and lose the war,” Taylor adds.
Despite the risks, these videos pull back the curtain and offer viewers a look at life in a time of job uncertainty. “I feel weird,” a woman who also posted her firing on TikTok this month tells the camera at the end of the video. “Am I being weird? Are you as uncomfortable as I am?” Uncomfortable or not, millions of people watched.
Workers are recording their layoffs and then posting them on TikTok. What could go wrong?
The following contribution is from Lillian Stone who is a features correspondent for the BBC.
Video call layoffs are becoming social media fodder, especially for younger workers
In an era of remote working, some employees are recording and posting their layoffs on video on social media. It can be empowering in a lonely situation, but is it sensible?
Millions of people on social media have watched tech worker Brittany Pietsch being fired from her job on a video call
On January 12, Pietsch, a former account executive at US IT company Cloudflare, posted a nine-minute video on TikTok. The caption: «When you know you’re about to be fired, you film it.»
The video shows Pietsch’s impassioned reaction as two company representatives she’s never met explain to her that she hasn’t met “performance expectations” and will be fired.
In the conversation, she defends her job, details the positive feedback she’s received, and quizzes the company representatives on the specific reasons why she’s among the workers being laid off. (Employees on the other line declined to provide any.)
Similar videos are gaining traction on TikTok and X (formerly Twitter), as rolling layoffs continue to impact industries around the world. In a new twist for the current employment landscape, many of these layoffs happen to workers over video calls in their own homes — an isolating event for a young worker, especially if it’s their first layoff.
Some viewers may view layoff videos as transparent and empowering — especially those who can relate to the experience — comments can also be a place to share workplace tips for coping with a layoff.
In Pietsch’s case, she recorded and uploaded the firing “so she could share what happened with family and friends,” she told the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 16. But experts warn that turning a layoff into social media content, no matter how well-intentioned, can have long-term career implications.
Content Meets Solidarity
The TikTok hashtag #layoffs has garnered more than 366 million views.
The surge in interest is not unexpected: The tech sector’s mass layoffs of 2023 have continued into the new year, with staff reductions at Google, Amazon and other major players since Jan. 1; media layoffs also continue to affect thousands of people. For Gen Z professionals at the centre of the live firing trend, the videos could be interpreted as an extension of the slice-of-life content otherwise embodied by Get Ready With Me (GRWM) videos, a sector of TikTok in which creators showcase their daily routines. Creators gain traction by offering followers a glimpse into their inner lives; in that sense, a firing might be a perfectly normal thing to share on social media. You can just produce good content, particularly in line with trending formats and topical topics.
Alamy In a new world of work, more and more firings are happening by video – in employees’ homes
For viewers, the videos offer a way to feel less alone in a new world of work, where firings now often happen during 10-minute video calls in one’s home office, rather than in the privacy of a windowless conference room.
Pietsch’s video drew comments of empathy and support: “I’m so sorry to hear this,” one viewer writes. “I was fired after 7 years of loyalty to a company I worked for. It literally almost killed me.” Another writes: “Companies don’t care about you so they might as well put these people on the spot.”
For all its entertainment value, though, this content also reflects the current labor landscape
Where a pro-employee power shift has emerged, particularly in the past year.
Along with worker-led labor movements, including last year’s “summer of strikes” (a period of widespread and highly publicized union activity in both the U.S. and the U.K., where workers signed record-breaking contracts), live layoff videos challenge the norm that employers always have the upper hand.
The videos also speak to the idea that employees are less concerned with protecting a potentially outdated standard of professionalism and are more motivated around workplace organization and solidarity.
For many of these creators, that means holding employers accountable even after they’re no longer on the payroll
Farah Sharghi, a tech recruiter, content creator, and career coach based in San Francisco, feels that layoff videos are a natural consequence of a tumultuous labor market in the age of social media.
«The fact that layoff experiences are being shared on platforms like TikTok reflects a shift toward greater transparency and a desire to share personal stories in a digital world,» Sharghi says. «It also underscores the emotional and professional impact of corporate decisions on people. It’s one thing to talk about being laid off, but it’s another to experience it with the affected person in real time.»
Shift towards greater transparency
The sharing of experiences of redundancies on platforms like TikTok reflects a shift towards greater transparency and a desire to share personal stories in a digital world – Farah Sharghi
Sharghi adds that videos like Pietsch’s can communicate a growing sense of dissatisfaction with employee-employer relationships.
“The company [may try to] blame the layoff on the
