Losing a job is never well-timed. Losing one while caring for a newborn is especially brutal. Jess Mayhew was sitting on her couch at home with her newborn son beside her when she received the call from human resources. The Baltimore-based media professional said she was just six weeks postpartum and barely into her planned four-month maternity leave when she learned her position had been eliminated in the company’s latest round of layoffs.

The 40-year-old told Make It: “I remember looking at my son and feeling this wave of guilt wash over me, thinking: I don’t know if I can take care of him.” Kathleen Gallagher Robbins, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan nonprofit Women & Families Partnership, says it’s difficult to determine how common it is for women to be fired during maternity leave, but several indicators point to this being an ongoing issue. There are documented cases of people being let go while on leave, lawsuits involving discrimination tied to leave in termination decisions, and research showing employers discriminate against mothers in hiring decisions — “and that discrimination very likely extends to their firing decisions as well,” Gallagher Robbins said.

Recent data shows women have borne the brunt of job losses. According to a National Women's Law Center analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, roughly 845,000 women have left the labor force since the start of this year — more than double the number of men. Jannel Jones, a senior fellow at the progressive think tank The Century Foundation, noted that women, especially women of color, are occupationally segregated into industries experiencing significant layoffs, including leisure and hospitality, public service fields, and roles tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion work. And the risk of unemployment is climbing. With high living costs, weak hiring, and about a quarter of unemployed job seekers spending six months or more searching for work, the possibility of losing a job during the vulnerable period of leave and newborn care feels like an ever-present threat.

“What we’re seeing is a labor market that is extremely hostile to women, and at the same time a government that is making things more difficult for women,” Jones said, referencing efforts to cut public safety nets like food stamps and affordable health insurance. “It’s not surprising that women are facing these kinds of challenges at work.”

Leave protections are limited and confusing

In the days and weeks after the layoff, Mayhew said a big question came up every time she raised the issue with family and friends. She said: “When I told them, the first reaction from most people was, ‘Isn’t that illegal?’ That’s the most common thing people say to me, and I say, ‘Unfortunately, no.’ But it sounds like it should be illegal.” Jess Mayhew lost her media job shortly after giving birth to her son in January.

The U.S. does have laws protecting workers from discrimination for taking maternity leave or for other accommodations related to pregnancy or caring for a newborn. The most well-known is likely the Family and Medical Leave Act, which prohibits discrimination, including retaliation or termination against workers who take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave. But there are gaps: FMLA only protects full-time employees working for employers with 50 or more staff. Some supplementary laws fill these gaps: the Pregnancy Discrimination Act protects full-time and part-time employees at the federal level from discrimination based on pregnancy or related medical conditions, applying to employers with 15 or more workers. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which took effect in 2023, protects workers from retaliation for requesting or using accommodations during pregnancy. Many states and cities have broader protections than federal law.

But these policies do not protect people from termination driven by other factors, such as company downsizing or closure of operations. “I feel like layoffs since the pandemic have become deeply embedded in the public consciousness,” said Lin, a former Bay Area tech worker. Now, artificial intelligence is also entering the picture, with more companies citing investment in the technology as grounds for job cuts. Laura Narefsky, senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center, said: “We’re seeing employers continue to find neutral-sounding reasons to make employment decisions that are supposed to be discriminatory. Right now, there isn’t enough understanding of how AI is actually changing and shaping the workforce to parse through that high-level excuse.”

Layoff anxiety is high in a brutal job market

Economists say we are in a low-hiring, low-firing job market. But that hasn’t eliminated layoff anxiety. Lin worked in the tech industry for about a decade before she and several colleagues learned they were laid off halfway through her four-month maternity leave in 2023. She noticed layoffs in her field starting to increase around 2022 and says current layoff announcements feel “nonstop.” The 37-year-old from the Bay Area, now a real estate investor and creative writer, said: “I feel like layoffs since the pandemic have become deeply embedded in the public consciousness,” and are now considered “the norm.” “It’s like, ‘Oh, another layoff, another layoff,’ and on and on.”

According to research from Glassdoor, current layoff numbers are near pre-pandemic levels, but higher in some sectors, including media and tech, while smaller layoffs of fewer than 50 people make up a growing share of workforce reductions, leading to what it calls a persistent trend of “permanent churn.” Many workers are still feeling the impact of federal layoffs tied to the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency work. Kathy Horwitz, a 40-year-old working at a nonprofit doing public health research, began maternity leave in January 2025. Horwitz said she took 12 weeks of unpaid leave under FMLA, returned to work on a Monday, and received an email on Tuesday saying she had been selected for redundancy in the latest round of layoffs in her department. “It’s really devastating and heartbreaking,” said Horwitz, from Durham, North Carolina, adding that the timing was “so cruel.” Horwitz said she immediately threw herself into the job hunt. But this layoff felt different: as a public health worker, “it's not like I could just move to a competitor because my entire field is being gutted, losing the same funding,” she said.

According to TIME magazine, the second Trump administration’s layoffs at federal health agencies include cutting 20,000 jobs from the Department of Health and Human Services, canceling approximately $12 billion in pandemic-era federal grants, and halting 22 projects totaling nearly $500 million aimed at developing responses to public health emergencies. “Our health and well-being are tied to labor and the economy,” said Elizabeth Dawes, maternal health director at The Century Foundation. Horwitz found a new job outside public health in September 2025 but hopes to return to a public service career one day. “I know my old job doesn’t really exist anymore,” she said.

Mayhew in Baltimore said her job search is now in its seventh month and moving slowly. “This is by far the most difficult and challenging job market I have seen in my lifetime,” she said, including the labor market during the Great Recession of 2008. She said it’s been especially hard to find a role with flexibility, such as remote work days, which would be useful for her as a new mother. At times she feels that her experience level as a manager hasn’t made things easier. Mayhew said: “It feels like a hit for women of a certain age at this stage of their career. It’s harder to hire someone who has reached a certain salary level or a certain level of leadership.”

Layoffs push new parents into a health care bind

When Meg Shetlin of Los Angeles was let go in 2018 after about three months of maternity leave, the first thing she did was call her friend who is an employment lawyer. The 45-year-old Shetlin learned not to sign any severance paperwork before negotiating better departure terms, allowing her to leave her product marketing role. By doing so, she said she negotiated her severance from three months to nine months. Other things that can be negotiated, according to Ron Lieber, the personal finance columnist for the New York Times, include cashing out unused vacation days, keeping the company-issued laptop or phone, or even staying on the payroll at a nominal $1 salary to extend health insurance coverage.

The loss of income is one stressor of being laid off, but equally pressing is figuring out health insurance coverage, which is essential for postpartum women and newborns. According to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization, in 2025, 60% of the U.S. population under age 65 — nearly 166 million people — have employer-sponsored health insurance. About a quarter of people even say they stay in jobs they dislike just to maintain health coverage. Elizabeth Dawes, maternal health director at The Century Foundation, said the current system means “our health and well-being are tied to labor and the economy.” Mayhew said she received four months of health coverage in her severance agreement and negotiated three additional months through COBRA, which allows people to temporarily keep employer-sponsored health insurance after losing a job. Lin of the Bay Area said that after her layoff, her family switched to her husband's employer-sponsored health insurance, which triggered a special enrollment period, typically lasting 60 days following a qualifying life event like a layoff. She also said she negotiated a cash equivalent in her severance equal to what her employer would have provided for two months of medical, dental, and vision insurance for the entire family, including her newborn son. Others who lose coverage may choose to go through the Affordable Care Act marketplace or see if a drop in income makes their family eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Handling the aftermath

Narefsky of the National Women's Law Center says that if you believe discrimination may have played a role in a layoff during maternity leave, and you decide to pursue legal action against your employer, documentation can mean everything. She advises starting before taking leave: document conversations about your due date, your understanding of your company's leave policy, how long you expect to be on leave, and your expected return date. Keeping records of performance reviews is also helpful. Narefsky says that sometimes high-performing complainants suddenly receive "inexplicably very negative performance reviews" after "informing their employer of their pregnancy." If you want to consult a lawyer, Narefsky says to “reach out early.” In some states, workers have as few as 180 days to file a claim or initiate an investigation, which can be a pressing deadline for someone with a newborn. She recommends seeking help from the Times Up Legal Defense Fund and the National Women's Law Center's Gender Equality Law Network.

Narefsky added that it's worth noting that losing a job while on leave isn't just a problem for new mothers. “We often see fathers or non-birth parents facing discrimination or stereotyping because they want to take leave,” she said. “The situation is different and more complex, but this isn't just an issue that affects women.”