I've watched people handle it every way imaginable. Some collapse inward. Some find a clarity they didn't know they had. Most land somewhere in between — confused, frightened, and suddenly very aware of how much of their identity had been quietly resting on a job that is no longer there.
This isn’t a piece about why job loss happens.
That’s a different conversation, and honestly, not a very useful one. Because regardless of what we think or write or say about it — job loss is not going away. A hundred years from now, people will still be losing jobs.
Probably longer.
The milk is spilt. The question is what you do next. But before we get there — here’s what you can do right now, while you still have a job.
Build a Second Skill (Before You Need One)
This applies to everyone. Thriving, languishing, somewhere in between. Every working person needs to be building a second skill in parallel with their current one.
Why?
Because your primary skill — the thing you’re good at, the thing you’ve spent years developing — is only as valuable as the market’s appetite for it. And that appetite can change faster than most people expect. Sectors that looked unassailable five years ago are struggling now. Skills that commanded a premium are being automated, outsourced, or simply not needed at the scale they once were.
If your primary skill disappeared from the market tomorrow, could you still generate an income? Not from a new employer — but from the skill itself, deployed independently. That’s the question you should ask yourself.
A second skill isn’t just insurance. Ideally, it’s something you actually enjoy — something that feels less like work and more like the thing you’d do anyway if nobody was paying you.
This matters because the second skill needs to survive the moments when motivation is low, when the primary income is gone, and the pressure is high. Passion, or at least genuine interest, is what keeps you showing up when obligation alone isn’t enough.
Here’s the practical objection most people raise: where’s the time?
You’re already at capacity. The job fills the day, the family fills the evening, the weekend barely covers recovery. I understand that. And I’d say this: make time anyway, because the alternative is hoping your current skill remains relevant and your current employer remains solvent for as long as you need them to.
And you can’t guarantee either.
You don't need to master the second skill before it becomes useful. A reasonable level of proficiency — enough to offer it to someone in exchange for money — is the threshold. Once you're there, you have options. You can stay where you are, or you can choose to move. But the choice is yours, not the market's.
Move On — Faster Than Feels Comfortable
When the job goes, there’s a version of grief that arrives with it. That’s real, and it’s human, and it deserves acknowledgement.
But there’s a specific set of thoughts that tend to follow job loss that are worth naming:
Why me?
I gave this everything.
I was here for x years.
I deserved better.
All of that may be completely true. And none of it moves you forward by a single day.
Sympathy won't pay the bills. Grievance won't undo what's happened. The time spent in either of those places is time not spent on the only thing that actually matters now: what comes next and how do I get there.
The job market today has changed. There are fewer traditional jobs, more competition for the ones that exist, and a growing expectation that individuals will manage their own employability rather than relying on organisations to do it for them. Upskilling, reskilling, reinvention — these aren’t buzzwords anymore. They’re the operating reality for anyone who wants to stay relevant across a working life that may span forty years or more.
The good news is that the ability to do these things is largely in your own hands. Not entirely. Privilege, circumstance, timing — these play a role, and pretending otherwise isn’t honest. But more of the outcome rests with you than the moment of job loss tends to make it feel.
Pack the bag. Leave. Look forward.
The Emotion Question
I’ve watched people who were deeply emotionally invested in their workplaces suffer most when the job ended. Not because they were weaker, but because the separation cost them more. They had built something inside that organisation that went beyond the work: an identity, a community, a sense of purpose that lived in the building and the team rather than in themselves.
When the job went, all of that went with it.
Emotion at work is not a problem. Warmth toward colleagues, pride in what you’ve built, genuine attachment to the place — these are good things. The problem is when the organisation becomes a substitute for the things that should exist independently: your sense of self-worth, your relationships, your understanding of who you are outside the office.
Your workplace is where you earn a living. It's where you interact, share a meal, have a laugh, and occasionally — if you're lucky — find people who matter to you. But it is not your family. The people there may feel like family, and some of them may stay in your life long after the job is gone. But the institution itself is not.
Knowing this — clearly, without bitterness — is what allows you to exit cleanly when it’s time. Not without sadness, but without being dismantled by it.
Your Takeaway
Job loss arrives differently for everyone.
For some it’s sudden — an ordinary Tuesday that ends with a conversation you didn’t see coming. For others it’s a slow erosion, visible from a distance, dreaded for months before it finally arrives. Either way, the period before it happens is not wasted time if you use it well. Build the second skill. Protect your sense of self from being too tightly bound to any single organisation. Keep the emotional investment honest.
Present, but not dependent.
And when it does happen — because for many of us, it will — move. Not because the loss doesn’t hurt. It does. But because the only direction available to you is forward, and the sooner you face that way, the sooner you start covering ground.
Nobody builds their future by looking at where they used to stand.
Nuggets From Lived Experiences — weekly reflections on life, as it actually happens.
About Me
I am a thinker at all times. I see, I think. I hear, I think. I read, I think. Every weekend I write. I would love to know what you think.