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Quiet Quitting Is Over—Welcome to Loud Rebuilding

Quiet Quitting Is Over—Welcome to Loud Rebuilding

Also, 17 000 jobs axed this week, interest in working abroad is fading fast, personal AI therapist

May 15, 2025

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👋 Welcome, Jobseekers

"When your priorities are clear, every 'no' becomes a step toward what matters."

If your feed feels like a memorial service after Microsoft, Panasonic, and Chegg swept out 17 000 teammates, exhale. Those layoffs aren’t a dead end; they’re the crack we’re prying open to rebuild something stronger. Inside today’s issue you’ll get the unvarnished numbers, the fresh social-strategy playbook, and an invite to a community that refuses to heal quietly. Let’s get loud and build what’s next.

📉 Layoff Report: Microsoft, Panasonic, & Chegg layoffs of more than 17,000+ combined
🧑‍✈️ Career CoPilot: Quiet Quitting Is Over—Welcome to Loud Rebuilding
📈 Trends & Data: Overseas Applicants Pump the Brakes on Tech Roles
🔧 Jobseeker Tools: Socrates, MindLumen Therapy, Carrus Interviews

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📉 Microsoft, Panasonic, & Chegg layoffs of more than 17,000+ combined

Source: TrueUp

Quiet Quitting Is Over—Welcome to Loud Rebuilding

Overview

Microsoft’s new “good-attrition” purge and Paramount’s rolling cuts prove the layoff wave isn’t subsiding—-it’s mutating into a ruthless performance purge that just released thousands of high-impact builders back into the wild.

The Details

Microsoft: ~7,000 roles gone, rehire ban on “under-performers.” Workers shown the door face a two-year no-return policy and a five-day ultimatum: accept 16 weeks’ severance or a sink-or-swim PIP with nothing if you fail.
Paramount: multi-round cuts approaching 10 k. The studio’s 15 % workforce reduction keeps snowballing as execs “streamline” costs.
System-wide toll: 640 k+ tech jobs erased since 2022. Layoffs.fyi tallies 165 k (2022) + 264 k (2023) + 153 k (2024) + 59 k (YTD 2025) and climbing.
Mental fallout: 7 in 10 US workers now fear AI-driven redundancy, a leading driver of burnout spikes in 2025 well-being surveys.

Why It Matters

These numbers aren’t mere “rightsizing.” They’re a mass-trauma event wrapped in HR jargon—yet the same engineers who held clouds together, designers who humanized cold interfaces, and ops leads who ran chaos like clockwork are suddenly tagged as expendable. In reality, they were indispensable placeholders in a flawed system looking for scapegoats.

That’s the crack in the façade—and the opening for loud rebuilding. Offboard isn’t polishing corporate optics; we’re turning collective shock into collective power. If you’ve just been “freed,” plug into a network that refuses to let talent bleed out in silence.

Take Action – Become an Offboard Ambassador

The Offboard Community is comprised of many micro-communities that reflect major company layoffs. It’s a place to reunite with familiar faces and help pick each other back up again. If you want to be an ambassador for others that got laid off with you, jump in at Offboard.co—because the only thing louder than mass layoffs will be the community that rebuilds in their wake.

Overseas Applicants Pump the Brakes on Tech Roles

Overview

Global appetite for working abroad is fading fast: overseas clicks on Indeed job ads have tumbled almost back to pre-pandemic norms since last summer.

The Details

Global drop-off: Foreign clicks fell from 3.4 % in Aug 2024 to 2.3 % in Mar 2025, erasing the entire post-COVID surge.
STEM skid: Architecture and key engineering fields lost up to 3 percentage points of overseas interest in a year, driving the overall slide.
U.S. snapshot: Interest from abroad in U.S. jobs peaked at 2.4 % in Aug 2023 but has slipped to 1.7 % amid election-year immigration rhetoric.
Country contrasts: Australia still leads at 14 %+ foreign share, while Canada (7.8 % peak) and Germany (6.7 %) are also trending down.

Why It Matters

Fewer international applicants mean less competition for U.S. jobseekers, especially in tech—but they also hint that employers may shelve relocation budgets and visa sponsorships. If you’re eyeing a role overseas, act before tighter immigration caps close doors. Hiring teams, meanwhile, have a brief window to scoop up global talent still willing to move. Keep résumés timezone-friendly and spotlight remote-collaboration chops to stay competitive in this shifting landscape.