Laid-Off Tech Workers Start Solo Firms as Job Growth Hits Highest Three-Month Average Since 2024

Bonnie Chiurazzi, laid off as director of market insights at Glassdoor in September 2024, started Vibe Insights Lab after applications failed to produce offers. She said she already knew how to perform the required work and saw no reason to wait for another employer. The firm surpassed its 2025 revenue goals and is ahead of 2026 targets.

Chiurazzi, who is in her 40s and worked in market-research roles for more than a dozen years, employs a few students and contractors on a contract basis. She said budget cuts at client firms have created demand for cost-effective research support because AI is not filling the gap.

She initially viewed the move as a temporary corporate detox but now plans to continue the consultancy as her primary career.

Darnah Thompson, who is in her 30s, was laid off from a publishing-agency job and began offering services to former clients on a free-call basis. Those calls led to paid book-publishing work, and she went all-in on Books & Brand in August 2024 after three consecutive months of revenue exceeding combined personal and business expenses.

Thompson said she prefers the freedom of choosing clients and avoiding the weight of managing teams.

Jessica Cao, a Stanford University graduate in her 20s, has been developing and beta-testing the interactive story game World37 while attending school. She uses AI agents to represent human behavior, personality, and memory and said she finds entrepreneurship more frightening than traditional job applications.

Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, and Gallup found 46% of self-employed people were in quality jobs versus 39% of employees. The same study found more full-time employees reported earning a living wage than self-employed respondents, while about two-thirds of self-employed workers felt they had agency and voice compared with half of employees.