A professional who was laid off in December under the pretext of “restructuring” says he was left reeling after discovering a new hire with the same job title and similar experience at his former company, raising fresh questions about transparency in corporate exits.
The employee shared his experience on Reddit, where his account struck a chord with workers who say the line between layoffs and quiet replacements has become increasingly blurred.
The Layoff Explanation
According to the post, the employee was informed during an HR meeting that the company was restructuring and short on work. His manager reportedly told him that the team needed someone with “different expertise” and more experience.
Concerned about the implication, he directly asked whether the decision was performance-related.
“My manager adamantly denied it,” he wrote. “He said I was great at my job.”
Though disappointed, he accepted the explanation at face value and began moving on.
A LinkedIn Discovery
Months later, a LinkedIn post altered that narrative.
The employee said he came across an announcement from a new hire celebrating his appointment at the same company, with the same job title the former employee had held.
The similarities, he wrote, were striking.
“We work in the same industry, graduated in the same year, and even have a bunch of shared connections,” he said, noting that the new hire’s listed experience level appeared comparable to his own.
The discovery left him questioning whether the layoff had truly been about restructuring or whether he had been replaced outright.
“My head is going in circles,” he wrote. “I feel that I’ve been blatantly lied to.”
He admitted feeling tempted to contact the new employee directly to understand what had happened, adding that the uncertainty was affecting his sleep.
‘It Doesn’t Matter’
Reddit users responded with a mix of blunt pragmatism and empathy.
“It doesn’t matter what’s going on. They let you go,” one commenter wrote. “Your focus now is what to do moving forward.”
Another asked whether confirmation of being replaced would provide any real closure.
“Will it make you feel better if you knew you’ve been lied to and replaced? Doubt it,” the commenter wrote, urging him to concentrate on the next opportunity rather than revisiting the past.
Some responses were sharper in tone, framing corporate employment as inherently transactional.
“We are just numbers on a spreadsheet,” one user wrote, arguing that job security in large organisations has a limited shelf life.
A Broader Pattern?
Several commenters shared similar experiences of being replaced following acquisitions or restructurings.
One user described how their entire department, including management, had gradually been replaced by employees from a parent company with different values or lower compensation expectations.
“Knowing that we were replaced… hasn’t made it any easier,” the commenter wrote, suggesting that understanding the motive rarely reduces the sting.
Others highlighted what they see as a wider corporate trend of replacing experienced employees with similarly qualified, or sometimes lower-cost, hires under the guise of restructuring.
“No one lasts in jobs anymore,” one commenter wrote. “Corporate just shuffles everyone and cuts the salary for the next replacement.”
Shelf Life of a Corporate Role
Another respondent offered a stark statistic from their own workplace: in a department of roughly 1,500 employees, only five to 15 individuals annually reach the five-year mark.
“That’s less than one per cent,” the user wrote, advising professionals to assume a three-year cycle and to always be prepared for change.
The advice was consistent: maintain an emergency fund, continue networking and never assume permanence.
Closure Versus Moving On
For the employee at the centre of the discussion, the emotional weight appears tied less to the job loss itself and more to perceived dishonesty.
The temptation to seek answers is understandable, workplace observers say, but closure is not always attainable — or productive.
As one commenter put it succinctly: “Move forward. Don’t look in the rearview mirror.”