4 ways to protect your finances after being retrenched

Treat any severance package you receive as an asset and not a windfall, say experts

- Lisa Rabasca Roepe

Ms Marla Hetzel knew the healthcare company she worked for was struggling and that several employees had been let go. So when colleagues who once sought her input suddenly cancelled 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 behaviours so that we could be ready to modify them if we were forced to,” said Ms Hetzel, who lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the US.

In May, Ms Hetzel was laid off, joining a group that now totals nearly 900,000 US private sector employees who have lost their jobs in 2025, more than the number laid off through all of 2024.

The US 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 labour market tightens.

Employers added a mere 22,000 jobs in August, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, fewer than what economists expected. The unemployment rate also rose to 4.3 per cent, from 4.1 per cent in June.