Career
Rehired is not recovered
BLS reports reemployment held at 66.1 percent while pay recovery fell to 49 percent. The job search after a layoff now turns on level, not luck.
Dana James · September 4, 2026 · 2 min read
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Getting rehired after a layoff is about as likely as it was two years ago. Getting rehired at your old pay is not.
One number held, one number fell
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 7.4 million workers displaced from 2023 to 2025, up from 6.3 million in the prior survey period, with 3.3 million of them long-tenured (Displaced Workers supplement, released August 27, 2026). Reemployment held steady: 66.1 percent of long-tenured displaced workers had new jobs by January 2026, which BLS calls similar to 65.7 percent two years earlier.
Pay did not hold. Among reemployed full-time workers who reported earnings on the lost job, about 49 percent were earning as much or more than before, down from about 62 percent in the January 2024 survey. The real risk in a job search after a layoff has moved from “will I find work” to “at what level.”
Write the floor before the market writes it
Define your level before the search starts. Put the pay floor and the scope floor on paper first, then measure openings against that line instead of measuring yourself against the openings. A search without a floor drifts toward whatever says yes fastest, and the floor is the part you control.
Notice is not a plan
BLS reports that about 45 percent of long-tenured displaced workers received written advance notice, and their reemployment rates were not statistically different from those who got none. The warning period changed nothing measurable. What counts is how the search runs once it starts: applications aimed at genuine fit, not volume aimed at everything. And 44.4 percent lost the job because the position or shift was abolished. The role ended. Nothing about the person did.
Past 55, budget the runway
BLS put reemployment at 72.9 percent for ages 25 to 54, 57.3 percent for 55 to 64, and 38.6 percent for those 65 and older. The first yes comes slower with age, so budget the runway honestly and do not read a slow month as a verdict on you. It is the market’s pace, not your worth.
CoBlack’s Auto Match scores openings against your Career Capability Map, capability rather than titles, so the level you set on paper is the level the search aims at.
A job search ends when you sign. It succeeds when you sign at your level.
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