India, July 22 -- For workers, the modern layoff is no longer necessarily one brutal announcement followed by a return to stability. It is increasingly a series of smaller, quieter reductions that arrive every few months, often without a clear end point.

Glassdoor calls this the "Forever Layoff". Its 2026 Worklife Trends Report describes a workplace in which companies continuously adjust headcount through smaller rounds of job cuts rather than a single, highly visible restructuring exercise.

The unsettling part is not merely the size of any individual reduction. It is the growing sense that the restructuring never truly ends.

Glassdoor's analysis of US layoff filings found that reductions affecting fewer than 50 employees accounted for...