Life after layoffs: It's complicated

The pain of a pink slip cuts deeper than a lost paycheck. Sunday Times speaks to those who have lived through the experience

- Ketaki Desai

Suraj* and his colleagues at Twitter were not surprised by the way things worked out the writing had been on the wall ever since the Elon Musk takeover. Even so, the email letting him know he had been let go and being signed out of his email and Slack came as a shock. "We are or were a very transparent organisation, but the communication with this was so haphazard. The anguish is not that people were laid off, but the way it was done," says the Delhi resident who is coping by not thinking about what has happened as much as he can. "I have a home loan as well but more than salary and benefits, work gave me solace. Until I don't get that, there will be unrest in my life."

'Tis the season of unrest as both Indian and global startups let go of employees left, right and center. Indian startups have fired upwards of 15,000 employees, according to reports.