A former Google employee has shared a candid account of being laid off, saying he believed that working longer hours and postponing personal plans would make his job more secure, only to discover that it did not.
Jason Zhang, who worked at Google for three years, said in a video that he had always prioritised his job. In the caption, he wrote that he thought if he “just worked harder, put more hours in, delay that vacation, it’ll all be worth it.” But when he was laid off, he said, “none of it really mattered.”
Zhang pushed back against the idea often shared online that losing a job can be a blessing in disguise. “I see a lot of people online saying that getting laid off was the best thing that has happened to them but that’s not the case for 99% of people,” he wrote. He added that while some may have significant savings, financial backing from family, or side businesses to fall back on, most people do not have that cushion.
Although he acknowledged that he has some savings from working in tech, Zhang said he feels intense pressure to quickly find another role. As an only child from an immigrant family, he said he is trying to support and eventually retire his parents. That responsibility, he noted, makes it difficult to take time off to process what happened.
“I’m worried, anxious, scared, shocked, and feeling a bunch of other emotions but I can’t dwell on it,” he wrote.
In his caption, Zhang also reflected on how much he had postponed for work. “I delayed many things I wanted to do so I can put in more effort into my job, convinced that working harder means I am less likely to be let go,” he said. “But I’ve seen that to not be the case for many talented people I’ve worked with.”
His comments come amid ongoing layoffs across the tech sector, where companies have been restructuring teams and cutting roles over the past few years. For many employees, Zhang’s post has resonated as a reminder that performance and personal sacrifice do not always guarantee job security in an industry that can change rapidly.