You can be fired and still not counted as unemployed. That’s the trick. 108,435 layoffs were announced in January 2026 alone, the worst start to a year since 2009, yet unemployment is still sitting around 4.4%. On paper, it looks like everything is fine, but that number hides what’s really going on. A lot of people who were laid off are still on extended severance. They’re technically still on payroll for a few months, so they don’t show up as unemployed yet. But the truth is, their jobs are already gone, they just haven’t felt it fully. The scale is serious. Layoffs jumped 118% compared to January last year, and over 200% from December. Amazon and UPS alone account for about 46,000 cuts, nearly 40% of the total from just two companies. And it’s not just tech or logistics. Finance, manufacturing, and multiple industries are all cutting at the same time. It feels like a slow wave building under the surface. People still see a low unemployment number and think the economy is strong, but thousands have already been pushed out quietly. The real impact will show later, when severance runs out and those people start looking for jobs at the same time. Anyone here affected by cuts in the last 3–6 months?