A New York state Senate panel on Wednesday rejected Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul’s nominee to become the state’s chief judge after some lawmakers and advocacy groups expressed concerns he was too conservative for the job.

The Democrat-led Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-2 against sending the nomination of Hector LaSalle, the presiding justice of a Brooklyn-based state appeals court, to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.

Seven other senators voted to send the nomination to the Senate floor “without recommendation.”

The vote sets up a potential legal battle between Senate leadership and Hochul, who has said she could sue to force a confirmation vote.

LaSalle faced sharp questions from Democratic senators during a five-hour confirmation hearing about his decisions that they said show a bias toward prosecutors, employers and an anti-abortion group.

“This isn’t going to be a roast, but it isn’t going to be your bar mitzvah either,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Brad Hoylman, a Democrat from Manhattan, told LaSalle.

LaSalle, 54, said his critics have mischaracterized his record and that in those cases he was merely applying the law and existing court precedent.

“The person they describe, I do not recognize,” the Long Islander said.

LaSalle said that as a Puerto Rican from a working-class background, he understood the need for the legal system to protect marginalized communities. If confirmed, LaSalle would be New York’s first Latino chief judge.

He said he supports a woman’s right to make reproductive choices, workers’ ability to unionize and the constitutional rights of people accused of crimes.

Hochul chose LaSalle last month from a list of seven candidates, several of whom have more liberal records and were supported by progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups.

LaSalle was a prosecutor for 15 years before becoming a judge in 2008.

New York’s chief judge heads the seven-member Court of Appeals, which has the final say in interpreting state laws, and oversees the state court system.

While Democrats have a strong hold on state government, the Court of Appeals has leaned conservative since former Chief Judge Janet DiFiore joined in 2016. DiFiore stepped down last year.

Hoylman said during the hearing that a thorough vetting of LaSalle was necessary amid the rightward shift of the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts under Republican then-President Donald Trump.

Republicans on the committee defended LaSalle and suggested that some Democrats came out against his nomination to score political points.

“You do not come across as a right-wing conservative nut,” said Senator Andrew Lanza, a Republican from the New York City borough of Staten Island.

The Judiciary Committee has only voted down a governor’s candidate for a Court of Appeals seat one other time, but in that case the Senate still confirmed the nominee.

A group of four U.S. senators on Wednesday asked passenger railroad Amtrak Chief Executive Stephen Gardner to answer questions about a Virginia to Florida train last week that faced lengthy delays after another train derailed.

The senators noted one passenger dubbed it the “train ride from hell.” During what turned into a 37-hour-long journey “passengers reported limited access to food, bathrooms, and medical care, as well as limited ability for pet owners to disembark, resulting in feces on train floors,” the senators wrote. The senators — Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell, Richard Blumenthal, Ed Markey and Ben Cardin — asked Amtrak to detail its policies and procedures for passenger care and compensation in the event of similar delayed incidents.

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will host Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Washington on Wednesday, a belated official visit by Turkey’s top diplomat that will focus on the potential sale of F-16 fighter jets and Ankara’s refusal to green light NATO membership for Sweden and Finland.

The two foreign ministers have met before on the sidelines of NATO summits and United Nations meetings but it took the Biden administration almost two years to extend an official invite to Cavusoglu, a delay that many analysts say reflects a strained relationship.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Syria policy, energy cooperation and regional security issues will also be on the agenda, U.S. and Turkish officials said.

The United States has praised Turkey for some of its actions during the Ukraine war, including mediating grain corridor talks, but also worries about Ankara’s deepening relationship with Moscow.

The countries are also at odds over Turkey’s desire to carry out a military operation into Syria and its intent to normalize ties with Damascus. For its part, Turkey demands Washington not support the Syrian Kurdish militia that it sees as terrorists.

Ties between the NATO allies have loosened since Turkey acquired Russian missile defense systems in 2019, which led to Ankara’s removal from the next generation F-35 fighter jet program.

Turkey now hopes to buy F-16 jets from the United States, a sale that some top members of Congress oppose despite support from the Biden administration.

The U.S. lawmakers objecting to the sale cite Turkey’s deteriorating human rights track record and Syria policy. But recently, Ankara’s refusal to ratify NATO membership of Sweden and Finland is emerging as a more central reason in their opposition.

“(Turkish President Tayyip) Erdogan’s … repeated attacks on our Syrian Kurdish allies, and continued cozying up to Russia — including delaying Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership — remain serious causes for concern,” Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said in a statement.

“As I’ve said before, for Turkey to receive the F-16s, we need assurances that these concerns will be addressed,” he said.

The two Nordic states applied for NATO membership last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but their bids need approval from all 30 NATO member states. Turkey and Hungary have yet to endorse the applications.

Turkey raised objections, accusing the countries of harboring groups it deems terrorists. It said Sweden in particular must first take a clearer stance against these groups, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.

Erdogan said on Monday the two countries had to deport or extradite up to 130 “terrorists” to Turkey before parliament would approve their requests to join NATO.

On Tuesday, Finland said it hoped the Turkish foreign minister’s trip to the United States this week would help clear the way for it and Sweden to join the alliance.

Last week, the U.S. State Department informally notified the committees overseeing arms sales in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives of its intention to proceed with the $20 billion sale of F-16s to Turkey.

The move triggered a slew of statements from members of Congress opposing the deal, with the most notable coming from Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whose leaders review major foreign military sales.

At a press conference on Saturday, Ibrahim Kalin, Erdogan’s chief foreign policy advisor, said Washington’s demands relating to the supply of the fighter jets were “endless.”

He added he hoped the F-16 deal would not become “hostage” to the NATO memberships of Sweden and Finland.

While Congress can block foreign arms sales it has not previously mustered the two-thirds majorities in both chambers required to overcome a presidential veto.

Still, the Biden administration is unlikely to follow through with the sale unless Menendez reverses his opposition, a senior administration official said.

“If the U.S. is telling us that ‘You should ratify Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession to get F-16 jets from the U.S., this would lead us to a dead end,” deputy head of the Turkish Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and ruling AK Party member Berat Conkar told Reuters.

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The maintainers of the Git source code version control system urge to update the software to fix two critical vulnerabilities.

The maintainers of the Git source code version control system announced to have fixed a couple of critical vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2022-23521 and CVE-2022-41903, in their software.

The flaws were discovered as part of a security source code audit of the source code version control system sponsored by the OSTIF, which was performed by a team of security experts from X41 and GitLab.

The vulnerabilities can be exploited by a threat actor to achieve remote code execution.

The vulnerabilities impacts versions <= v2.30.6, v2.31.5, v2.32.4, v2.33.5, v2.34.5, v2.35.5, v2.36.3, v2.37.4, v2.38.2, and v2.39.0.

Patched versions include v2.30.7, v2.31.6, v2.32.5, v2.33.6, v2.34.6, v2.35.6, v2.36.4, v2.37.5, v2.38.3, and v2.39.1.

The CVE-2022-41903 is an integer overflow in `git archive`, `git log –format` that can lead to remote code execution in git.

“Git is distributed revision control system. `git log` can display commits in an arbitrary format using its `–format` specifiers. This functionality is also exposed to `git archive` via the `export-subst` gitattribute. When processing the padding operators, there is a integer overflow in `pretty.c::format_and_pad_commit()` where a `size_t` is stored improperly as an `int`, and then added as an offset to a `memcpy()`.” reads the advisory for this issue. “This overflow can be triggered directly by a user running a command which invokes the commit formatting machinery (e.g., `git log –format=…`). It may also be triggered indirectly through git archive via the export-subst mechanism, which expands format specifiers inside of files within the repository during a git archive.”

The maintainers of the preject recommend users who cannot immediately update their install to disable “git archive” in untrusted repositories to mitigate the CVE-2022-41903 flaw.

The second issue, tracked as CVE-2022-23521, is a gitattributes parsing integer overflow.

“Git is distributed revision control system. gitattributes are a mechanism to allow defining attributes for paths. These attributes can be defined by adding a `.gitattributes` file to the repository, which contains a set of file patterns and the attributes that should be set for paths matching this pattern. When parsing gitattributes, multiple integer overflows can occur when there is a huge number of path patterns, a huge number of attributes for a single pattern, or when the declared attribute names are huge.” reads the advisory. “These overflows can be triggered via a crafted `.gitattributes` file that may be part of the commit history. Git silently splits lines longer than 2KB when parsing gitattributes from a file, but not when parsing them from the index. Consequentially, the failure mode depends on whether the file exists in the working tree, the index or both. This integer overflow can result in arbitrary heap reads and writes, which may result in remote code execution.”

“In conclusion, the Git codebase shows several security issues and the sheer size of the codebase makes it challenging to address all potential instances of these issues. The use of safe wrappers can improve the overall security of the software as a short term strategy. As a long term improvement strategy, we recommend to alternate between time-boxed code base refactoring sprints and subsequent security reviews.” concludes the report published by Eric Sesterhenn,and Markus Vervier who discovered the issues.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, integer overflow)

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The post Two critical flaws discovered in Git source code version control system appeared first on Security Affairs.

Whole Foods has about 500 stores now, but CEO Jason Buechel wants to roughly triple the number of new store openings per year.

Rogelio V. Solis/AP

• Whole Foods wants to triple the number of stores it opens, CEO Jason Buechel said Monday.
• The Amazon-owned grocer wants to open 30 new stores a year, up from 11 in 2022.
• Buechel’s goal contrasts with Amazon Fresh, which has reportedly paused new store openings.

Whole Foods’ CEO wants to roughly triple the number of new stores that the grocer opens each year, even as parent company Amazon has paused expansion of its other store formats or closed locations.

Last year, Whole Foods opened 11 stores, according to industry publication Winsight Grocery Business. But the chain wants to find and open new locations even faster, CEO Jason Buechel said at the National Retail Federation’s annual conference in New York on Monday.

“Ultimately, we want to be opening 30 or more stores a year,” Buechel said according to Winsight. “For us, it’s the ability to serve more customers.”

Buechel also said that Whole Foods is looking at new store formats, including “new ways that we can serve customers” with new store sizes and shapes. “I can’t share a lot today, but we’ve got a couple of examples that we’ve already done,” Buechel said. He pointed to the chain’s “Ideal Market Denver,” a Colorado store where Whole Foods is offering more organic products as well as additional sustainable offerings, such as bottled water that doesn’t rely on single-use plastic containers.

Whole Foods’ goal of opening more stores comes as consumers resume visiting stores and turn away from grocery delivery services, which gained popularity during the early months of the pandemic. Grocery delivery sales fell 1.8% in December, even as sales through pick-up orders rose, according to a survey from consultancy Brick Meets Click and research firm Mercatus.

The faster pace of openings and experimentation with new formats also contrasts with other Amazon-owned store chains. Last March, Amazon said it would close 68 stores, including all of its Amazon Books and Amazon 4-Star locations. 

Amazon has also reportedly paused new store openings for its Amazon Fresh grocery chain, The Information reported in December. Last year, Whole Foods closed six stores around the country. 

Amazon recently said that it plans to lay off about 18,000 workers, with employees in charge of Amazon’s physical stores expected to be among the hardest-hit.

But Buechel painted an optimistic picture for Whole Foods’ store footprint at the NRF event. He said that Whole Foods currently has 50 new stores in various stages of development, but added that he hopes to double that number over time. 

“We are so bullish on our potential to continue to add stores,” Buechel said according to Winsight. Whole Foods has 534 stores around the world, according to the company.

Whole Foods’ plans include entering new markets and building up its presence in existing ones. 

Among Whole Foods’ latest new store openings is its first store in Montana, Buechel said at the NRF show. The store, in Bozeman, will mark Whole Foods’ entry into its 44th state. 

It also opened a location in New York City’s financial district on January 11. The store features art deco design as well as a wide array of products local to New York, Whole Foods said of the opening. Shoppers can also stop by the meat counter to see the store’s butcher at work.

“We’ve talked about the theater of retail,” Buechel said. “For us, this is like a flagship experience.”

A rendering of KB Homes’ metaverse community store front.

Courtesy of KB Homes

• The LA-based builder KB Home opened a first-of-its-kind community in the metaverse on January 17.
• The company’s CEO said the community is meant to inspire “exploration and engagement” among its customers.
• The move comes as builders of all sizes are grappling with increasing new-home cancellation rates.

One of America’s largest built-to-order homebuilders is expanding into the metaverse as more homebuyers in the real world cancel their purchase agreements. 

KB Home, a Los Angeles-based homebuilder that operates in 47 markets across the country, announced on Tuesday that it launched the first-of-its kind virtual reality community to inspire more “exploration and engagement” among its customers. The move comes just days after the company announced in its fourth quarter earnings that its cancellation rate has risen to 68% compared to just 13% it reported in Q4 2021. 

KB Home’s virtual community allows customers to personalize some of the company’s model homes to their preferences, from changing the architectural style to customizing the interior design. It was designed in partnership with marketing firm The Metaverse Group and launched on the Decentraland platform. Decentraland is a web browser platform where people can buy virtual plots of land with cryptocurrency and build digital homes. 

Different customizable home types offered in KB Homes’ metaverse community

Courtesy of KB Homes

“We know consumers are increasingly immersing themselves and spending more time in virtual spaces,” KB Home’s CEO Jeffrey Mezger said in the announcement. 

Cancellations have become a scourge to homebuilders of all types over the past year as rising mortgage rates have caused many potential homebuyers to wait and see if they can get a better deal in the future. 

Lennar Corporation, a Miami-based homebuilder that specializes in building single-family homes, reported in its Q4 2022 earnings back in December 2022 that its cancellation rate rose to 26% from 12% from the same period a year prior. 

The story is the same for Toll Brothers, a luxury homebuilder based in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, which saw its cancellations increase from 4.6% in Q4 2021 to more than 20% in Q4 2022, according to its earnings report. 

Taylor Morrison, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based homebuilder and land developer, reported a similar outcome in its Q3 earnings report back in October 2022. The company saw its cancellation rate increase from around 6% in Q3 2021 to 15.6% in Q3 2022.

In turn, homebuilders have been offering incentives to potential buyers in an effort to offload their backstock of homes. For example, Taylor Morrison offered homebuyers discounts ranging between $18,000 and $50,000 for new homes in Houston. Lennar Homes held a Black Friday-esque sale last year in hopes of inspiring more homebuying activity as well.  

These efforts come as the number of newly constructed homes on the market continue to take up a growing share of the US housing inventory. According to census data, more than 461,000 newly constructed homes were available in November 2022, representing 8.6 months of supply, compared to the 3.3 months of supply for existing homes, as measured by the National Association of Realtors. 

For KB Home, cancellations are especially precarious as the company specializes in built-to-order construction, meaning that KB customers can personalize their homes before they are built. Mezger said during the company’s Q4 earnings call that the company saw an increase in the number of cancellations of homes that were “close to or at completion” because of challenges with adding utilities to completed homes and a lack of confidence among homebuyers. 

To combat these issues, Rob McGibney, KB Home’s chief operating officer, told investors that the company is focusing on moving homes “as efficiently as possible through the construction cycle.” This includes incentivizing buyers in some markets with mortgage buydowns and reducing the number of days between selling a property and beginning construction. 

The metaverse community can help alleviate some of these issues by allowing customers to design their new home online before KB begins building it in the real world. However, the company is still dealing with supply chain issues as it relates to HVAC units, electrical components, garage doors, and windows, McGibney said. 

Florida Gov. Ron. DeSantis, a Republican, accused the Biden administration of changing its tune on classified documents after lawyers discovered records at President Joe Biden’s home and office.

Lynne Sladky and Susan Walsh/AP Photo

• DeSantis weighed in on the classified documents revelations regarding Biden and Trump.
• He accused the Biden administration of a double standard. 
• “They are acting like it’s not a big deal,” DeSantis said about the Biden administration.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida came close to defending former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, when he accused the Biden administration of having a double standard on classified documents. 

The governor was weighing in on the story dominating headlines for the last week, which has slowly revealed that President Joe Biden held classified documents at his post-vice presidential office and home. Trump, meanwhile, kept hundreds of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. The latest Biden situation has posed a political headache for the White House. 

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” DeSantis said in response to a reporter’s question about the documents. “You can’t have two different sets of rules based on your political party.”

The governor also noted a CBS “60 Minutes” interview Biden conducted in September, in which the president called his predecessor “irresponsible” after a staged photo from the Justice Department showed folders of the document Trump held at Mar-a-Lago, clearly labeled “top secret.” 

“He said that it was incredibly reckless to have classified — he said all this stuff on ’60 Minutes,'” DeSantis said about Biden. “Now you find out he had them stashed behind his Corvette at his house that Hunter had access to, which is definitely a security risk in my book.”

The governor, who was speaking in Daytona Beach Shores, Florida, was raising an attack line similar to many Republicans in Congress, who say that Biden’s son, Hunter, could have accessed the classified documents. 

“It just shows you what some of these folks do,” DeSantis said. “They had all this stuff to say, and now they are acting like it’s not a big deal.” 

DeSantis, who frequently attacks Biden, did not say “Trump” by name, but it was clear from the context that he was comparing the two situations.

It’s possible DeSantis and Trump will face off for the GOP White House nomination in 2024 to go up against Biden, though Trump is the only one who has made a run official. Trump, 76, who endorsed DeSantis in 2018, has attacked the governor for dodging questions about the 2024 nomination contest, and nicknamed him “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

DeSantis, 44, has not responded directly to the attacks, even when prodded by the press, though he has been differentiating himself on policy and touting his record win in Florida on Election Day — when many national Republicans Trump backed performed poorly.

The White House did not immediately respond to Insider’s inquiry seeking a response to the governor’s comments. 

Based on the limited information the White House has released so far, the investigations into Trump and Biden’s mishandling of documents have notable differences, though improperly handling such documents is considered a serious matter that’s potentially damaging to national security. 

According to court records, Trump resisted turning over hundreds of documents, which led to a subpoena, and then to the FBI raiding Mar-a-Lago to recover them. In contrast, Biden’s team has said that aides immediately called the National Archives when they discovered the documents. 

Trump previously downplayed his keeping of documents, saying that other former presidents such as Barack Obama had done the same. The National Archives disputed Trump’s claims, countering that Obama sent the documents to a federal government center, sorted through them, then sent some materials to Obama’s presidential library. 

The defense of each case has also varied depending on political party. 

When more information came out about top-secret documents Trump held at Mar-a-Lago, many congressional Republicans were caught flat-footed over how to respond as details of the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago unfolded.

Some downplayed the investigation while others accused Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department and  rallied around the former president.

Trump is facing a criminal investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith related to his hoarding of classified materials. Last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to review Biden’s case, while US House Republicans also are launching investigations. 

Nurphoto

• Cryptocurrency lender Genesis Global Capital may file for bankruptcy protection as soon as this week, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
• Genesis was still talking to creditors and its plans may change, the report said. 
• The parent company of Genesis, Digital Currency Group, has also been dealing with a liquidity crunch.

Cryptocurrency lender Genesis Global Capital is preparing for a potential filing for bankruptcy protection, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

A filing could come as early as this week, the report said, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The unit of crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group, or DCG, has been in confidential talks with creditor groups as it deals with a liquidity crunch.

The negotiations with creditors are ongoing, and plans could change, the report said.

Genesis owes its creditors more than $3 billion, the Financial Times reported last week. Meanwhile, DCG has been working to resolve financial troubles emerging from the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX and defunct cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. The FT had previously reported DCG may sell assets in its venture portfolio to raise funds. 

Genesis in November halted redemptions in the wake of FTX’s implosion and warned at the time that bankruptcy was possible unless it could find fresh capital.

The turmoil at Genesis has spilled over to its lending partner Gemini, a cryptocurrency platform run by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

Gemini in November also had to halt withdrawals for its interest-bearing Earn program, as more than $900 million of customer funds remain on Genesis. Gemini’s Earn program let users earn a yield for lending their coins through Genesis.

Meanwhile, parent company DCG has been scrambling for capital in other places. It plans to halt quarterly dividends to conserve cash, as Genesis tries to avoid bankruptcy. 

According to a Tuesday letter to shareholders seen by Bloomberg, DCG said it is “strengthening our balance sheet by reducing operating expenses and preserving liquidity.”

Tens of thousands of tech workers have been affected in the latest round of layoffs.

Getty Images

• Amazon and Microsoft are the latest tech giants to lay off workers amid economic uncertainty. 
• More than 37,000 tech employees have lost their jobs this year, according to Layoffs.FYI.
• Career professionals suggest taking these steps if you’ve lost your job, including posting on social media.

Pink slips are flying, with dozens of technology titans and startups laying off workers. 

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced it would lay off 10,000 workers as it aims to cut costs amid economic uncertainty, according to a memo from CEO Satya Nadella. Additionally, Amazon began cutting jobs on Wednesday after announcing it would trim more than 18,000 roles from its headcount earlier in January. 

In the first week of November, ride-share platform Lyft announced it would cut 13% of workers, NFT marketplace Dapper Labs announced its intent to lay off 22% of its staff, and Twitter laid off nearly half of its staff after Elon Musk took over. This flurry of layoffs is on top of cuts that already occurred at companies such as Peloton, Netflix, and Coinbase. 

So far, more than 37,000 tech workers have lost their jobs this year, according to the tech-industry-layoffs tracker Layoffs.FYI. And more than 150,000 were laid off last year.

As the US appears to be facing a possible recession, workers are worried about falling victim to the next round of layoffs in their industries: In a survey of 1,004 working US adults in June by the staffing-services firm Insight Global, 78% of employees said they were scared of losing their jobs in the next recession.

Liz Tilia, the founder of life-coaching company Fem Home Ec., and Toni Frana, a career-services manager with the remote-job search platform FlexJobs, listed five steps people should take if they’ve been laid off.

1. Give yourself time 

One of the first things someone should do after learning they’ve been laid off is nothing, the career experts said. Workers need time to process their emotions before diving into the logistics of their severance and job hunting.

Whether an employee saw their layoff coming or they were blindsided by the announcement, the split will have an emotional effect on them, Frana said.

“Allowing yourself some grace and some time to process is important,” she said.

2. Seek legal counsel  

After you get laid you off, human resources will likely give you a document to sign, Tilia said. This document usually serves two purposes: to waive your right to sue the company and to give the company control over what you say about them. 

Signing this document is optional, and companies should provide at least a few weeks for you to obtain your own counsel to review it, Tilia said. Counsel can fight the terms of a nondisparagement clause and advocate for you in negotiations.

“If you can, I always recommend utilizing legal counsel,” she said. “If people can’t afford legal support because they’re being laid off, there are plenty of free clinics online that they can find.” 

3. Negotiate your layoff 

Once you’ve taken time to read through the offer HR provides, you can counter with your own offer, Tilia said.

“Negotiate the terms of your departure, just like you would negotiate the terms of your arrival,” she said.  

For instance, she recommends workers ask for a letter of recommendation explaining they were laid off and not fired, severance pay, career-coaching services, stock options in lieu of unused paid time off, an extension of insurance into their transitionary period, and for the official reason of termination to make them eligible for unemployment. 

Additionally, severance — which should be equivalent to at least four weeks of pay for each year you worked for the company — should be collected through multiple payments and not one installment, Tilia said.

“I, unfortunately, negotiated a $25,000 severance payout that I got paid in full, and I got $11,000 taken out in taxes,” she added. 

4. Forward-thinking job hunting 

While employees who were laid off are likely eager to find work, Tilia encourages her clients to embrace the “lazy man’s” way of finding a job: setting their professional profiles to “open to work” and searchable by recruiters, along with uploading their résumés to LinkedIn, Indeed, and CareerBuilder. This is on top of actively applying to open positions, she said. 

And, unless the job posting you applied for has a date for when the firm will stop accepting applications, follow up with the company after a week or so for a status update, Frana said.

If you make it to the interview stage of the application process, you want to control the narrative of why you are no longer with your previous employer, Frana added. Applicants should not dwell on their layoff, and they should use words like “downsizing,” “merger,” or “restructuring,” she added.

For example, Frana said a job seeker can say this in their interview or add this to their cover letter: “Due to my company downsizing, I was part of a group layoff and am looking forward to pursuing new opportunities.”

5. Build connections 

One of the best ways to get a new job is to rely on your old connections, Tilia said. To get your network’s attention, you can publish a social-media post about the situation. 

In recent months, some LinkedIn users have posted about losing their jobs at companies such as Amazon, Twitter, and Netflix. Some of these posts have gone viral.

If an employee decides to post about their situation, Tilia and Frana agree that they should recognize what they gained from their old job and let people know they’re looking onward to opportunities.

“Saying something negative about the situation or about your employer will not look good to potential new employers,” Frana added.

An earlier version of this story appeared on July 27, 2022.