The technology sector has been shedding jobs at a significant pace. What began as a correction after pandemic-era over-hiring has continued well into 2026, affecting workers at companies of every size, from large established platforms to early-stage startups. If you work in tech and are worried about your job, or have already been laid off, you must understand your legal rights before you sign anything.

Your Severance Agreement Is Not a Formality

The first thing many laid-off tech workers receive is a severance package, often accompanied by a separation agreement that must be signed within a defined window. These agreements are not standardized documents that simply formalize what the company owes you. They are legal contracts designed, in large part, to protect the employer by having you release claims against them in exchange for severance pay.

Before signing, read the agreement carefully and consider what you may be giving up. Severance agreements typically include a broad release of all employment-related legal claims, non-disparagement clauses, and sometimes non-solicitation or non-compete provisions. What the company offers as a starting point is not necessarily what you are entitled to, and it is rarely the ceiling of what is negotiable.

If you believe your layoff may have involved any form of discrimination, retaliation, or other unlawful conduct, signing a severance agreement without the right legal advice could mean permanently forfeiting claims that have real value.

Age Discrimination in Tech Layoffs

Age discrimination is a significant and underappreciated issue in technology sector layoffs. The industry skews young, and when companies conduct reductions in force, the pattern of who gets cut sometimes reflects that bias rather than legitimate performance or business criteria.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits employers with 20 or more employees from discriminating against workers who are 40 or older. When a layoff disproportionately affects older workers, or when decisions about who to retain appear to be influenced by age-related assumptions about adaptability, salary costs, or cultural fit, a legal claim may exist.

One important procedural note: when employees who are 40 or older are asked to sign a severance agreement that includes a release of age discrimination claims, federal law requires the employer to give them at least 21 days to consider the agreement and 7 days to revoke it after signing. If your agreement did not come with these protections, that is worth flagging with an employment lawyer.

The WARN Act: Notice Requirements for Large Layoffs

If you were part of a larger reduction in force, the federal WARN Act may be relevant to your situation. This law requires employers with 100 or more employees to provide 60 days’ advance written notice before conducting a mass layoff or plant closing that meets certain thresholds. New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts each have their own versions of the WARN Act that may impose additional or somewhat different requirements.

When an employer conducts a qualifying layoff without providing the required notice, affected employees may be entitled to back pay and benefits for the notice period that was skipped. Tech companies conducting rapid large-scale reductions in force have run into WARN Act liability in recent years, so if you were part of a significant layoff with little to no advance notice, it is worth understanding whether those rules applied to your situation.

Discrimination Hidden Inside a Reduction in Force

Not every layoff that is labeled a reduction in force is purely a business decision. Employers sometimes use RIF procedures to terminate employees they want to remove for discriminatory reasons while obscuring the real motivation behind neutral-sounding restructuring language. Courts and the EEOC are aware of this pattern, and employment law provides tools to examine whether a layoff decision was actually driven by unlawful factors.

If you were laid off but similarly situated colleagues who are younger, of a different race, gender, or national origin, or who did not engage in protected activity such as filing a complaint were retained, that comparison matters. The selection criteria used to determine who was laid off and who was kept are often central to evaluating whether a discrimination claim exists.

Non-Compete and Confidentiality Agreements in Tech

Many tech employees signed non-compete or non-solicitation agreements at the outset of their employment, sometimes without fully understanding what they contained. If you are now facing a layoff and wondering whether those agreements will restrict your next move, the answer depends heavily on the specific language and the state whose law governs the agreement.

New York courts apply a demanding reasonableness standard to non-compete agreements, and many broad restrictions would not survive a legal challenge. If you are in New York and are concerned that a non-compete will limit your job search, speaking with an employment lawyer about the enforceability of your specific agreement is a practical first step.

Equity, Bonuses, and What Happens to Deferred Compensation

Tech compensation packages often include equity in the form of stock options or restricted stock units, as well as performance bonuses that may not yet have vested or been paid at the time of a layoff. What happens to those benefits when employment ends is not always straightforward and can depend on the terms of your equity plan, your employment agreement, and in some cases on whether the timing of your termination appears designed to deprive you of compensation you had effectively earned.

If you are owed a bonus that was never paid, or if your layoff came suspiciously close to a vesting date, those facts are worth examining with a lawyer before you accept a severance package and close the door on potential claims.

Contacting Working Solutions Law Firm

A layoff can feel disorienting, and the pressure to sign severance documents quickly and move on is real. But the decisions you make in the days immediately following a termination can have lasting consequences.

Contacting Working Solutions Law Firm for a case consultation can help you understand your rights and determine whether you need the assistance of an employment attorney. We also encourage anyone facing a layoff situation to seek additional perspective from other firms or resources, including the EEOC and state labor agencies in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.