In the cold November rain

If you’ve been wondering why your LinkedIn feed suddenly looks like a grief circle and why half your industry is “re-evaluating priorities,” welcome to November.

This is the month corporate America puts on its black cloak, tightens the gloves, and starts quietly arranging the sacrifices for next year’s scoreboard.

Everyone talks about January being the start of “layoff season,” but that’s just when the press releases go out.

The cuts start now.

The real purge, what I call the Pre-2026 Kill Box opens the minute November budgeting meetings begin. This is when CFOs sharpen the forecast, HR builds their offboarding plans, and entire job families get deleted.

And this year?

It’s colder. Sharper. More strategic.

The actual decisions…. like who gets cut, who gets replaced, which teams vanish, etc… are being made right now in November, inside budget decks you will never see.

If you’ve been feeling uneasy at work, there’s a reason.

The math is done. Here is the real pre-2026 purge map.