Marla J. Hetzel knew the health care company she worked for was struggling and that several employees had been let go, so when colleagues who once sought Ms. Herzel’s input suddenly canceled meetings with her, she started to worry.
“I began seeing signals that were telling me that if there were going to be more layoffs, I was probably a target,” said Ms. Hetzel, 55, who led the company’s innovation efforts.
So she and her husband made some changes. They began tracking every expense, challenging themselves to spend less each month on discretionary items like eating out, and contacting their cellphone and cable providers to find ways to reduce their bills.
“We were educating ourselves on where our money was going and reflecting on our behaviors so that we could be ready to modify them if we were forced to,” said Ms. Hetzel, who lives in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
In May, Ms. Hetzel was laid off, joining a group that now totals nearly 900,000 private sector employees who have lost their jobs so far this year, more than the number laid off through all of 2024. The federal government recently estimated it would end the year with 300,000 fewer workers. Many of these people are late-career employees and not willing or financially able to retire.
Yet finding a new job after age 50 can take months, especially as the labor market tightens. Employers added a mere 22,000 jobs in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fewer than what economists expected. The unemployment rate also rose to 4.3 percent, up from 4.1 percent in June.
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The post No Longer Young, and Now Laid Off: 5 Ways to Protect Your Finances appeared first on New York Times.
