‘No idea what tomorrow will look like’: In TikTok’s ‘unemployment diaries,’ workers document life after layoffs
Karlee Rea had a gut feeling she was going to get laid off.
In February, there were whispers among coworkers that layoffs were coming for employees at LTK, the creator e-commerce platform where Rea worked for nearly five years. The Dallas-based 26-year-old decided to vlog her day: She woke up early, hit the gym. Then it was time for work. Turns out, Rea’s gut feeling proved to be correct.
That morning, she was part of staff cuts that the company said impacted a “low, single-digit percentage of LTK’s overall head count,” from software engineers to creator-facing roles. Rea decided to include the devastating development in her vlog.
“This was my first big-girl job after college. I never really saw myself doing anything else,” Rea said in the video. “I have no idea what tomorrow will look like, but I do know that I’ll be taking you guys along every step of the way.”
That video has more than 18,000 views and dozens of comments from other recently laid-off people who apparently can relate. Seeing the response, Rea decided to start posting videos as part of an “unemployment diaries” series every day for a month: In them, she talks about doomscrolling on LinkedIn and landing interviews—only to have the excitement of new opportunities slip away when rejections land in her inbox.
“Today is three for three for [job] rejections,” Rea said on day 20. “Today just left me feeling really defeated.”
Rea’s not alone. There are more than 400,000 TikTok posts with the hashtag #unemployed; some 800 of them bear the hashtag #unemploymentdiaries.
The trend reflects the larger struggles young people are experiencing in today’s workforce: In February, the unemployment rate for Gen Z was at 8.3%—double the national average. Entry-level jobs seem to be vanishing. Gen Z adults are relying on their parents for financial support. More young professionals are picking up side hustles to stay afloat.
Mar Rosa, a public relations professional from New York City, was laid off from a midsize agency back in December. “You just never really think it’ll happen to you,” she told Fast Company. “At first I was like, completely candidly, ‘Holy shit, my life is over.’” After spending the night crying, she decided to post a video of what a day in the life of a newly unemployed 25-year-old looks like.
In her videos, she talks about the ways she keeps a sense of normalcy amid the hours spent job hunting—like running errands with her mom and going to the gym. “It’s very important that [since] I no longer have a 9-to-5 that I have some sort of consistency within my routine,” she said in one post.
At first Mar—who asked to be identified by her online nickname—felt embarrassed about being unemployed. But after posting her first video to TikTok, she said friends reached out to her sharing their own struggles with a shaky job market. “There are some not-so-glamorous things to life, and being laid off is one of them,” she said.
Posting her unemployment diaries on TikTok has brought benefits, too, like helping Mar get out of her apartment, feel productive, and even apply to more jobs.
Between a shrinking pool of opportunities and an influx of “ghost jobs” (positions companies post but have no immediate intent to fill), job seekers may feel an increasing sense that securing a full-time role is out of reach.
“The job market is so hard, and it’s really intense,” Mar said. “Nobody tells you how much of a full-time job it is to find a job.”
When she’s not spending hours on LinkedIn, Mar stays afloat by relying on support from family, unemployment resources, and side hustles (including babysitting on weekends, which she said covers about a third of her electricity bill).
Sabel Harris, a 36-year-old marketing professional from Washington, D.C., worked at an ed-tech company before her role was eliminated in February. That, after having already been impacted by layoffs at a fintech company in 2025, led Harris to start her own “unemployment diary” online.
“There’s a lot of grief around it,” Harris told Fast Company. “People will talk about how to look for a job, but I don’t think a lot of people are naming the emotions behind it.”
Sharing her day-to-day life on TikTok to her audience of 10,000-plus followers has allowed Harris to feel less alone and isolated in her experience, she said. In one video, she talked about the different side hustles she’s taken on to meet her rent, like selling clothes on Poshmark. “You can be in the thick of it and still be moving,” she said in the clip.
Since posting videos on TikTok, Harris has landed a few paid partnerships with brands. She also makes a few bucks here and there from affiliate marketing, though it’s not enough to cover the cost of living.
But it’s not all doom and gloom on the unemployment TikTok front. Many creators are able to form communities on the platform and even make professional connections. They offer support, review résumés, and share interviewing tips and job leads. And when employment offers eventually do come, they’re there to celebrate each other.
“There’s a whole world out there of this happening to so many other people,” Rea said. “We really are able to share each other’s plight of getting laid off.”