A growing number of companies are quietly cutting jobs in small batches throughout the year.
The trend has a name now, “forever layoffs,” and it’s being described as a modern corporate strategy.
But behind the buzzword is a more troubling reality: firms are using this tactic to sidestep regulations and avoid paying severance.
Joshua Fluke, a YouTuber known for covering workplace issues, criticized companies for using the term to sanitize what he calls “corporate gray-area exploitation 101.”
Under the federal WARN Act, companies with 100 or more full-time workers must give 60 days’ notice if they lay off 50 or more employees at a single site.
But many employers have figured out a simple workaround: just fire fewer than 50 people at a time. Spread those cuts out over weeks or months, and they can avoid triggering the law altogether.
“Companies are trickling out these smaller layoffs to try to avoid the bad press that comes with one large layoff,” said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor.
These rolling cuts aren’t always announced, and often there’s no internal warning.
One week, 16 people are gone. Another week, it’s 20 more. The result is a work environment full of stress and uncertainty.
The Numbers Are Climbing
This isn’t a small shift. According to Glassdoor data, just 38% of layoffs in 2015 involved fewer than 50 workers.
As of September 2025, that number is 51%.
Axios reports that layoffs affecting 250 or more people have declined to just 7%, while mid-size cuts (between 50 and 249 people) are also down.
The rising use of small-scale firings suggests that companies are increasingly treating layoffs as routine adjustments rather than rare emergencies.
Glassdoor’s Chris Martin called them “silent layoffs” and said they are now “just a part of doing business.”
Real People, Real Stress
The strategy might help companies avoid bad PR, but it’s still putting people out of work, and everyone who remains is left wondering if they’re next.
“While serial layoffs may fly under the radar, they don’t fool the employees who take on more work afterwards and wonder if they might be next,” Glassdoor said in its report.
Layoffs now dominate employee reviews on workplace sites more than they did in March 2020, during the early days of the pandemic.
A study from Johns Hopkins Carey Business School also found that employee well-being hit a new low last year.
Normalizing Instability
Fluke explains that companies deliberately lay off just under 50 workers at a time to “skip the WARN Act,” avoiding the legal obligation to give advance notice or severance.
By keeping the numbers just below the federal threshold, they reduce costs and avoid scrutiny.
He shared a story from his own early job, where he was repeatedly told he was safe, even as coworkers were let go one by one. Then it was his turn. That experience, he said, was all it took: “Companies don’t care about you.”
According to Fluke, unless you own the company, “there’s nothing you can do.”
He added, “There is no job security. It’s a lie. It’s always been a lie.”
What Comes Next
If the economy worsens, larger layoffs may return. Verizon recently announced a cut of 15,000 jobs, its biggest reduction ever.
Right now, small, quiet job cuts have basically become standard practice. They might help companies save face and avoid attention, but they take a real toll on trust, morale, and people’s sense of stability at work.
At the end of the day, “forever layoffs” might sound like just another trendy corporate term, but what they really do is highlight how shaky job security has become for everyday workers.