HERSPECTIVES: Layoff Culture Isn’t a Phase - It’s a System

We talk about layoffs like they’re weather.

“Things are slow right now”.

“Work dried up”.

“That’s just the industry”.

And in the trades, especially, that language gets normalized early. You’re taught to expect it.

Budget for it. Not take it personally.

But here’s the part we don’t talk about enough:

Just because something is common doesn’t mean it’s neutral.

The First Layoff You Experience

It’s usually framed as a rite of passage.

You show up ready to work, maybe even starting to feel like you’ve found your rhythm on a crew

- and then just like that, you’re done.

No long conversation. No development feedback. No roadmap.

Just: “We’ll call you when things pick up”.

Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t.

What sticks isn’t just the loss of work - it’s the uncertainty. The feeling that your place on a

jobsite is always temporary, always conditional, always one slow week away from disappearing.

What That Does to People

Layoff culture doesn’t just affect your income - it shapes how you show up.

It teaches apprentices to stay quiet instead of asking questions.

It teaches workers to prioritize being liked over being developed.

It teaches people to keep one foot out the door, because stability isn’t something you can count

on.

You stop thinking long-term.

Why invest in improving a process if you might not be around to see it through?

Why speak up if it could make you the easy name on a layoff list?

Over time, that mindset becomes baked into the culture.

And then we wonder why engagement, retention, and leadership pipelines struggle.

The Leadership Gap No One Talks About

Layoffs don’t happen in isolation - they’re often a reflection of how work is planned, staffed, and

communicated.

But in many cases, the people responsible for managing that process were never trained to do

it.

Foremen are expected to lead crews.

Journeymen are expected to mentor apprentices.

Supervisors are expected to make staffing decisions.

Yet very few are given the tools to navigate the human side of those responsibilities - especially

when it comes to layoffs.

So decisions default to what’s easiest, fastest, or most familiar.

Not necessarily what’s best.

The Cost of “That’s Just How It Is”

When we accept layoffs as inevitable without questioning how they’re handled, we miss the

opportunity to improve the system around them.

Because layoffs might be part of the industry - but how we approach them doesn’t have to be.

Transparency can be improved.

Communication can be clearer.

Planning can be more intentional.

And most importantly, people can be treated like more than just a line item on a labour sheet.

A Different Standard

No one is arguing that layoffs will disappear entirely from the trades.

But we can raise the standard for how they’re experienced.

What if apprentices were given context instead of silence?

What if workers left a job knowing where they stood - and where they could go next?

What if leadership was trained not just to run jobs, but to manage transitions?

Because at the end of the day, people don’t just remember that they were laid off.

They remember how it happened.

And that shapes how they show up on the next job - or whether they come back at all.

Layoff culture might be ingrained.

But it’s not untouchable.

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