Layoffs have become more common recently. Companies can, and have, ditched full time professionals to cut costs. For them, this creates an opportunity to reshape the whole organization and redirect it for profitability, which attracts investors. This can allow for a rapid chain of events that can change a department or boost the company altogether.

Even though there are many rage-fueled stories of workers being suddenly laid off and left for dead in the economy without their benefits, this isn’t always the case. To start, many laws protect employees with a given warning ahead of time, allowing them some time to search for new career paths or other sources of income. In fact, some corporations provide paid time off for workers next on the chopping block, called “garden leave,” says Investopedia. Overall, this diffuses tension with companies finding it worth the extra expense.

Regardless, layoffs are hurtful and highlight life’s difficulties, especially for scholars about to enter college. Even though Daia Kumagai is just a freshman, he is already worried about the sour implications of suddenly losing a job. He first mentioned how it would be hard to know, even if unlikely, that “no job would be safe,” at least for the first few years starting. “I hadn’t thought about it like that,” Kumagai said, realizing how an important part of a person’s career and life could be just pulled away so easily.

No matter how you look at it, layoffs create a high degree of uncertainty, with many finding it unbearable. As Forbes mentioned, layoffs are an unethical “unsettling experience” that leaves even the people remaining in fear of being cut, stating how some survivors choose to leave afterwards, unable to feel comfortable in such an environment. This isn’t helped by the fact that it’s happening more often now than it has been before. It is rather likely that students today will probably have to face the effect of a layoff in the future, whether it’s losing a work partner or their source of income.