Laid off from Paycom.

What Paycom layoffs have meant for employees

One former employee gave KOSU a step-by-step account of how the cut reached them. They described an early email calling them to an 8:30 a.m. Zoom for a "mandatory department update," a reminder of confidentiality agreements during the call, and then an email confirming the firing, with a WARN Notice. That's one person's morning, but it fits Paycom's own statement that terminations "took effect immediately." If yours went the same way, there were no working days in which to ask questions in person, so the documents you were sent are the best record of what you were told.

On that call, HR tied severance to silence. "As part of the severance agreement, you are not to publicly discuss your separation or make public statements on social media about Paycom's personnel decisions among other things," an HR official said, adding that doing so "would prevent you from being eligible from your severance payments and benefits." The agreement KOSU obtained has a nondisparagement section that reaches the company's "management, employees, image, tradecraft, practices, office environment, culture." KOSU granted its source anonymity to discuss those terms. If you signed an agreement with language like that, a copy saved outside any work account puts the exact wording in front of you the next time a recruiter asks why you left.

Stock has its own rules, and they keep running after you leave. Paycom's non-executive stock agreement form lets it claw back shares, vested or not, if it decides a former employee hired or solicited covered staff, solicited covered customers, or made any "derogatory, negative, unflattering, critical" statement about the company within two years of leaving. Disclosing or using confidential information counts for three years. Shares already sold mean repaying the gross proceeds, and the decision sits in Paycom's "sole and absolute discretion." The form under its older 2014 plan sets the same clawback window and the same statements clause. The newer form carves out conduct protected by Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, truthful testimony compelled by legal process, and reports of possible violations to agencies such as the SEC, the EEOC and the NLRB. If one of these forms covers your grant, the date to keep in view is the 60th day after the third anniversary of your termination, the last day its clawback period runs.

The announced number isn't the whole of the year. Paycom's headcount went from 7,306 people in its 2024 10-K to 5,770 in its 2025 10-K, a net decline about 1,000 larger than the announced cut. Paycom's 2025 10-K and its 10-Q note on the cut don't say what made up the difference, and a net figure includes every departure and every hire, so it isn't a layoff count. Lower headcount gets at least part of the credit for falling employee-related costs in cost of revenues, sales and marketing, and general and administrative in the June 2026 10-Q, which also expects research and development employee costs to come in lower for 2026. Those are expense lines rather than job lists. They do show lower headcount running through more than one part of the company's costs.

Paycom has described the cut in a few ways. Its October statement said "only non-client-facing roles," while KOSU reported cuts across multiple departments. On the November 2025 earnings call, founder and CEO Chad Richison said a backlog of development work led the company "to reduce mostly administrative by about 500 people," and he said Paycom will "always seek to automate administrative tasks," though that "doesn't always materialize into a reduction of staff." He also described the people cut as let go "for no fault of their own." If a hiring manager asks about the gap, that phrase came from the company's founder on an earnings call, and you can quote it.

The layoffs centered on the Oklahoma City headquarters, so if you worked there, Oklahoma unemployment benefits has that state's rules for a claim. In October 2025 Paycom said it was still recruiting across sales, software, implementation and service roles. If you're weighing a return, that dated list is a starting point, and the company's current postings are the test. You can follow any new notices in our WARN filings tracker.

A sourced history of Paycom layoffs

• October 2025 workforce reduction of about 540 employees

  Terminations "took effect immediately," per a Paycom statement KOSU quoted. Paycom's third-quarter 2025 10-Q put the cut at about 540 employees. It said it would offer severance packages, per News 9, and filed an Oklahoma notice, per The Oklahoman.

What to do if you're laid off from Paycom

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Paycom's biggest hubs: Oklahoma. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• 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 Paycom's hub states run: Oklahoma, and every other state is here.
• 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.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• 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.