2026 LHH Career Mobility and Outplacement
Trends Report
The Mobility Breakdown
eroding trust, and stalling internal mobility.
Workforce change is no longer cyclical. It’s constant.
Organizations aren’t navigating occasional restructuring anymore. They’re operating in perpetual adjustment, without the systems, skills visibility, or mobility infrastructure needed to keep up. This data-based content series reveals the realities shaping today’s restructuring climate from both the employee and employer perspectives.
2026 LHH Career Mobility and Outplacement Trends Report
Now in its third year, the report serves as LHH’s flagship annual study on global workforce transitions. It examines how organizations and employees navigate layoffs, redeployment, and career reinvention, offering proprietary insights that help HR and business leaders design more adaptive, human centered workforce strategies.
Layoffs have become a strategy, not a last resort
73% say the fire and rehire cycle is more expensive than redeployment
Leaders understand the cost of churn, but many still use layoffs as a key workforce planning lever. With instability now structural, leaders need planning systems, skills intelligence, and mobility infrastructure to enable redeployment at scale.
Trust wanes between leadership and employees
Mobility exists on paper, not in practice
Leaders feel they’re providing support, but employees don’t see it. As layoffs accelerate, the divide deepens: 73% of workers witnessed job losses in their team last year, and 1 in 4 lose trust in leadership as a result. The impact is reshaping culture, confidence, and retention.
HR is overextended and underequipped
Few leaders measure the metrics that would reduce layoffs
HR teams are absorbing the emotional weight of constant change while lacking the systems and data needed to shift away from layoffs.
HR leaders say they are blocked by five systemic barriers that make talent redeployment unachievable.
HR leaders identify their top barriers to effective mobility:
1. Lack of strategic, long-term skills planning
2. Insufficient AI and analytics
3. Leaders unwilling to let go of their talent
4. Employees unmotivated to pursue internal roles
5. Ineffective manager-led career conversations
Culture and brand are taking measurable damage
Exit experience is now a frontline brand risk externally, and a cultural fault line internally
What happens during layoffs is shaping the perception and loyalty of those who stay.
The top 5 fallout effects employees feel after restructuring:
- Increase workload
- Reduced morale
- Team instability
- Loss of trust in leadership
- Decreased productivity
The Mobility Breakdown Content Series
Explore actionable insights and tools designed to help leaders address the forces driving layoffs, stalled mobility, and rising worker anxiety.
Infographic: The Layoff Cost Paradox
This infographic outlines why companies continue cuts even though 73% say rehiring is more expensive. With 87% planning or conducting layoffs, it shows why episodic restructuring is no longer effective and how continuous mobility and skills planning deliver stronger results.
Playbook: Internal Mobility as the New Severance
Leaders should view internal mobility like a modern severance program. With only 32% tracking mobility savings, 30% tracking redeployments, and just 19% of employees recognizing mobility programs, this playbook outlines the metrics and actions to scale redeployment effectively.
Insights article: The New Employability Crisis
With 58% fearing a layoff will damage their long‑term prospects and 56% doubting their skills, employees now fear irrelevance more than unemployment. Anxiety has shifted from the macroeconomy to personal marketability and the levers to reverse that shift may be simpler than leaders expect.
Insights article: The Culture and Brand Breakdown
Layoffs ripple far beyond those leaving, with 72% witnessing cuts on their own teams and reporting drops in morale, stability, and trust. With nearly half of employees willing to record their layoff, the real story is how quickly culture and brand can shift in a single moment.
Ready to rethink talent movement at your organization?
LHH partners with your organization to understand your needs and provide the expertise, strategy, and transition support required to keep your workforce strong through every stage of change.