The Layoff Club

Laid off from Morgan Stanley.

Morgan Stanley has taken a March cut two years running, 2025 and 2026, each about 2% of the firm worldwide and each booked with a severance charge in its own filings. Financial advisers were reported exempt both times. Those filings show the money spent, not the terms any one person got.

At a glance

What's known about Morgan Stanley severance and layoffs

  • $178 million, booked by the firm · March 2026 severance
  • $144 million, booked by the firm · March 2025 severance
  • About 2% of the global workforce · Scale both years
  • The roughly 15,000 financial advisers · Reported exempt
  • Not published · Severance formula
  • 12 filings all time, 6 since 2025 · In our tracker
  • New York, all dated March 5, 2026 · Where those 6 sit

Recent Morgan Stanley layoffs

Morgan Stanley booked $178 million of severance for its March 2026 cut

In March 2026 Morgan Stanley ran what its own filing calls a workforce management action that reached about 2% of the global workforce, booking $178 million of severance across its three business segments. Reporting at the time put the round at roughly 2,500 people, about 3% of staff, sourced to a person who spoke anonymously because the firm made no public statement about it. Our tracker holds six New York filings covering 273 jobs, all dated March 5, 2026.

Previous rounds

Morgan Stanley layoff history

Morgan Stanley has now made the same move in two consecutive Marches, and it wrote both of them down. The filing for its first quarter of 2026 records a March workforce management action that reached about 2% of the global workforce, and the firm called it an effort to improve operational efficiency and manage performance "rather than a change in strategy or exit of businesses." A year earlier the wording ran almost identically, a March reduction in force, also about 2% of the workforce, this one tied to performance management and the alignment of the workforce to business needs. Whatever the press called each round, the company filed both in nearly the same sentence.

The reporting and the filing don't agree on size, which is worth knowing before you repeat a number in an interview. The Wall Street Journal broke the 2026 round and the Associated Press put it at roughly 2,500 people, about 3% of staff, on the word of someone who spoke anonymously because the firm made no public statement. The company's own filing says about 2%. Both figures sit on this page because both sit on the record. They measure different things, one a scale the firm filed about its own action and the other a headcount attributed to unnamed sources, and nothing on the record reconciles them. The reported cuts ran across investment banking and trading, wealth management and investment management, reaching private bankers, support staff, and people handling mortgages for wealth clients, while the firm's financial advisors stayed out of it.

Set the rounds beside the payroll and the arithmetic stops behaving. The firm reported approximately 80 thousand employees at the close of 2024 and approximately 83 thousand a year later, which puts roughly three thousand more people on the books at the end of the twelve months that held a 2% March cut. Voluntary attrition ran at 9% globally in both of those years, and net revenues climbed from $61.8 billion in 2024 to $70.6 billion in 2025. For the one year where both endpoints sit on record, the March cut and a growing payroll happened together. Worth remembering when someone asks you to explain the layoff in an interview.

What the record holds on severance is money, not terms. The 2026 charge was booked as $94 million in Institutional Securities, $61 million in Wealth Management and $23 million in Investment Management, and the chief financial officer told investors the quarter's 65% efficiency ratio included the $178 million of severance charges. Older rounds carry their own figures, $353 million for a firmwide reduction in the second quarter of 2023 and $133 million for one in the fourth quarter of 2022. None of it establishes a formula, and no severance formula appears on record for this firm, so a firmwide charge can't tell you what your own package holds. That sits in your own paperwork, the offer and the release you were handed plus any employment agreement, severance plan or equity award terms they point to. Read those, and the deadline for signing, before you agree to anything.

In New York the filings are the part you can actually look up. Our tracker holds six Morgan Stanley filings covering 273 jobs since the start of 2025, every one dated March 5, 2026, the largest of them listing 120 jobs, and twelve filings across all the years we hold. New York asks private employers with 50 or more full time staff for 90 days of notice when a covered closing or a qualifying mass layoff happens, which the state sets at 33 percent of the workforce and at least 25 people, or 250 people at a single site, and backs it with a $500 per day civil penalty plus back pay and benefits for 60 days when the required notice fails to arrive. That same 90 days exists so the state's Rapid Response teams can reach people first, with job placement help, resume work and instructions for filing an unemployment insurance claim. If your notice arrived late or never came, the filing record is where you start checking.

Reporting on previous Morgan Stanley layoff rounds

How Morgan Stanley's layoffs compare to other companies

Cutting into record revenue has become the Wall Street habit, and Morgan Stanley's version comes unusually well documented. The firm puts a severance number on each March action in its filings and says, in its own words, that performance management rather than a change of strategy is what the action was for.

What to do after being laid off from Morgan Stanley

  1. File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Morgan Stanley's biggest hubs: New York, New Jersey, Maryland. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
  2. Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Morgan Stanley's hub states run: New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and every other state is here.
  3. Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
  4. Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
  5. Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.

Morgan Stanley layoff and severance questions

What severance does Morgan Stanley pay?

No formula on record. What the firm publishes is the total it books, $178 million for the March 2026 action and $144 million for the March 2025 one, each split across its three business segments. Those are firmwide charges rather than entitlements, so they can't tell you what any individual offer contained. Your own agreement and the release you get asked to sign control that, which makes them worth reading slowly.

Why did Morgan Stanley cut jobs during record revenues?

The firm's own filing describes the March 2026 action as an effort to improve operational efficiency and manage performance, rather than a change in strategy or exit of businesses. It described the March 2025 one in nearly the same words, as performance management and workforce alignment. Revenue was climbing through both, $70.6 billion in 2025 against $61.8 billion in 2024. Reporting added business focus and location requirements to the firm's stated reasons.

When does Morgan Stanley do layoffs?

Two years running the answer has been March. The firm booked severance for a March 2025 reduction in force and again for a March 2026 workforce management action, each about 2% of global headcount. Before that the timing moved around, with a February 2024 wealth management round and a December 2022 round of roughly 1,600 people. Two Marches make a pattern worth knowing about, not a schedule.

Did Morgan Stanley file WARN notices for the 2026 layoffs?

In New York it did. Our tracker holds six filings covering 273 jobs, all dated March 5, 2026, against a round reported at roughly 2,500 people worldwide, so those filings cover one slice of it. What other states or countries recorded sits outside what we track. New York asks covered private employers for 90 days of notice when a qualifying closing or mass layoff happens, where the federal law asks 60.

Were Morgan Stanley financial advisors laid off?

Not in the reporting we track. The Associated Press reported that the March 2026 cuts would leave the firm's financial advisors alone while reaching support staff inside wealth management. Bloomberg's account of the March 2025 round described the same carve-out, every division affected except the roughly 15,000 financial advisers. Private bankers sat on the other side of that line, and reporting placed them among the wealth management roles cut in 2026.

Where do I file for unemployment after being laid off from Morgan Stanley?

In the state where you worked, not where the company is headquartered. Morgan Stanley's biggest U.S. hubs are New York, New Jersey, Maryland. Severance usually doesn't block you from filing, and benefits run from your filing date, so file the same week.

Is it OK to file for unemployment after a layoff at Morgan Stanley?

Yes. Unemployment insurance is funded by payroll taxes employers pay on wages, the claim never appears on credit reports or background checks, and future employers cannot see it. If the hesitation itself is the obstacle, whether filing is OK has its own article.

What happens to my health insurance after a layoff at Morgan Stanley?

Your plan sets the end date rather than the law, so the separation packet is where that date actually lives, and it is often the last day of the month rather than your last day of work. After coverage ends, COBRA lets you keep the identical plan by paying the whole premium yourself, up to 102 percent of what the plan really costs, which lands as several times the payroll deduction you were used to. You get 60 days to elect, counted from the later of coverage ending or the election notice arriving, and electing reaches the coverage back to the day the old plan stopped so no gap exists. How continuation coverage works walks the timing, and whether to take it rather than a marketplace plan is a separate decision.

Should I sign the severance agreement right away?

First pin down how much review time you actually have. If you're 40 or older, federal law gives you 21 days to consider an agreement that waives age claims, 45 in a group layoff, and a waiver signed under a shorter deadline can be invalid. If you're under 40, no federal window applies and the deadline in your packet may be real, so confirm it in writing and ask for more time if you need it. Use whatever window you have to read the release terms, especially non-disparagement and no-lawsuit clauses, and don't stall past a real deadline, because offers can be withdrawn.

Can I collect unemployment if I got severance from Morgan Stanley?

Usually yes, though some states delay benefits until severance pay periods end, and lump sums are treated differently than salary continuation. Check your state's rules on our state benefit pages, and file immediately either way so your claim date is locked in.