August 1, 2026
US employers announced 1,206,374 job cuts in 2025, the highest annual total since 2020, and layoffs have stayed elevated into 2026 with 397,755 cuts announced by the end of May (source: Challenger, Gray and Christmas). AI is now the most cited reason for job cuts, which means career transition firms are increasingly supporting participants whose roles are not coming back.
Outplacement is a competitive, measurable category in the United States. Analyst firm Mordor Intelligence estimates the global outplacement market at USD 5.21 billion in 2025, growing to USD 7.39 billion by 2030, with virtual delivery already accounting for 62% of the market in 2024 (source: Mordor Intelligence, Outplacement Market Report). The fastest growth is in small and mid-sized engagements, where software-led delivery removes the cost barriers of traditional, consultant-only models.
It is also a crowded field: SHRM's vendor directory lists over 100 companies in its outplacement category alone (source: SHRM Vendor Directory, 2026). The firms that win share are the ones that can show HR buyers participant engagement and landing data, not just describe their coaching.
Most US outplacement engagements follow the same arc: an employer plans a reduction in force, often inside a WARN notice window, and procures outplacement as part of the severance package. Your firm onboards a cohort of impacted employees, delivers coaching and resume support, then reports outcomes back to the HR buyer.
Spacewalk slots into that workflow without replacing it:
Build your branded Spacewalk job board and invite your talent community in minutes
Whether you choose to stream roles automatically, invite employers or post them yourself they are automatically matched to your talent pool
Track applications, placements and community engagement from one reporting dashboard
Unlike generic job boards, Spacewalk gives you a branded, private or public jobs marketplace your talent actually trust, with sourcing, matching and reporting running automatically in the background.
There is no single federal data protection law in the US. Consumer privacy is governed by a patchwork of state laws, with 20 comprehensive state privacy laws in effect as of 2026, led by the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the CPRA (source: IAPP State Privacy Legislation Tracker). An outplacement firm holding resumes, contact details and job-search activity for participants across many states should support data access and deletion requests and collect only what it needs.
Two boundaries worth knowing: job listings on your board must comply with EEOC rules against discriminatory advertising (source: EEOC), and work authorization verification via Form I-9 always remains the hiring employer's obligation, not yours and not the job board's. This is context, not legal advice.
This is an illustrative scenario, not a customer story. A mid-sized career transition firm runs rolling cohorts for three corporate clients at once. Before a branded job board, consultants spent the first hour of each day pulling roles from public boards into spreadsheets. With per-client boards and an automated, employer-direct job stream, that sourcing hour goes back into coaching, and the firm walks into quarterly reviews with engagement and landing data per cohort instead of anecdotes.
With participant-level data: registrations, active usage, applications, interviews and landings per cohort, plus time-to-land trends. Spacewalk tracks these automatically on your branded board, so reporting comes from the system rather than from participant self-reporting.
There is no independent public benchmark; vendors publish their own figures. What HR buyers consistently respond to is a provider who can show real, current data for their own cohorts. Measurement is the credible position.
Yes. Each engagement can have its own branded board, so participants experience the employer's or your firm's brand, not a third-party site.
Spacewalk streams verified, employer-direct roles with direct apply links, matched to each participant's skills, seniority and location. Your team can also post roles or invite employers to post.
No. Form I-9 employment eligibility verification is always completed by the hiring employer. Spacewalk connects participants to roles; the employer runs its own checks.
It depends on your participants' states. With 20 state privacy laws in effect in 2026, the practical baseline is supporting access and deletion requests and minimizing the data you collect. Spacewalk gives you a single place to manage participant data rather than scattered spreadsheets.
Run cohorts outside the US? See outplacement job board software in the United Kingdom, career transition platforms for Australian providers and outplacement software for Canadian firms.
Spacewalk also powers job boards for US professional associations, alumni career platforms for US institutions, job boards for US adult education providers and placement platforms for US bootcamps.
