IBM layoff left Texas mom jobless for years

IBM layoff – Fatema Ali, a Dallas-area delivery project manager laid off by IBM in April 2024, says she’s been unable to find full-time work for more than two years. After the layoff coincided with her husband leaving his job to pursue a startup, the family leaned on paid-

When Fatema Ali walks her children through another day, she tries not to show the strain on her face. She worries they’ll sense something is wrong—because she still doesn’t know when her own job search will end.

Ali, a job seeker in her 30s who lives in Texas, previously worked for IBM as a project manager. She was laid off in 2024, and more than two years later she says she is still looking for full-time work.

She joined IBM in 2018 and worked remotely from the Dallas area. In early 2024, though, the time she thought she had with the company began to feel less certain. She said that in January 2024 IBM announced that all US managers would be required to report to an office or client location at least three days a week or risk losing their jobs. An office was about 15 minutes from her home, and she began going in regularly.

By February, Ali said her manager started warning her that broader layoffs could be on the horizon. When she was laid off in April, she said she wasn’t completely surprised.

The job loss collided with another financial shock at home. A few months earlier, Ali said her husband left his job to pursue a startup idea that wasn’t yet generating income. The family had three children to support, and for a period they were both out of work at the same time.

Ali said what helped was that they had already paid off their house. “That gave us some breathing room and relieved some financial pressure,” she said in the account.

Even with that, she describes months of uncertainty that forced tradeoffs. She said the family cut back where they could and tried to live more simply. including traveling less with the kids. For a period, they lived off savings and the severance she received, which amounted to about three months of salary.

Ali began applying for work immediately—inside and outside IBM. She said there was one promising internal opportunity that she applied for. but it would have required her to move to North Carolina. She said she had recently bought a home in Texas and wanted to stay close to family. especially because she didn’t want to uproot her three children.

So she focused on roles near home, primarily in project and program management. She also applied for positions in higher education, nonprofits, and government.

The search, she said, feels worse now than it did when she entered the market during the Great Recession. She graduated from college in 2008. when she said the job market was difficult. but she now feels her current experience over the last two years has been harder. Back then, she said she received more interview opportunities.

One of her biggest frustrations, Ali said, has been dealing with applicant tracking systems. She described building dozens of résumé versions for different roles because résumés can be filtered out if they’re missing the right keywords. She said it can feel as though strong candidates are overlooked before anyone reviews their experience. She said she can spend hours tailoring an application without ever speaking with a human recruiter.

Ali said she also tried reaching out through her network. When she could identify a mutual connection at an organization she was applying to, she would reconnect directly. She described applying online without a referral as one of her least effective strategies.

She has landed some interviews since her layoff, including moving through multiple rounds with some employers. Still, she said companies often selected internal candidates or people with more experience in specific areas. To find out who ended up with roles. she said she sometimes checks LinkedIn to see who got the job based on title and start date.

While she has been looking for work since the layoff, Ali said she hasn’t always been consistent with applications. She spent time helping her husband with his startup and devoted time to caring for her youngest child.

Last year, Ali said her husband decided to focus less on his startup and return to the workforce, landing a new job in November. She said that gave the family some financial relief.

As her children have gotten older, she said she has had more freedom to focus on her career again. By the middle of last year, Ali said she became much more consistent with her job search.

Even so. she has scaled back her job search somewhat in recent months to spend more time on projects with her husband—especially P1loop. an app the couple launched together. Ali said her husband used his experience as an iOS developer to help build it. She described the app as designed to help teams communicate about urgent operational issues. She said it isn’t generating any income yet, but they are hopeful.

Ali said her layoff experience forced her to rethink stability, take a risk, and try to build something meaningful from scratch. One of the lessons she says she’s learned is patience.

Ali has been working since she was 19 and said she’s looking forward to returning to work. She described her job search as stressful, but said she didn’t want that pressure to show. “I don’t want my children to feel like there is anything wrong,” she said. She said being unemployed hasn’t felt like a break—because when you’re dealing with financial uncertainty. caring for children. looking for work. and trying to build something new. “your mind is always racing.”.

Her advice to others going through similar uncertainty is to stay patient, whether things are going exactly as hoped or aren’t falling into place yet. While she’s still searching for the right opportunity, she said she’s learned the importance of staying the course.

IBM layoff Fatema Ali Texas job seeker project manager applicant tracking systems severance unemployment Dallas startups P1loop workforce return