I retired and my work deleted my email account. I had no idea that phone numbers that I added over the years would be attached to my work email. Although, they were just phone numbers not related to my work.
Thanks, Apple I lost 429 contacts😡😡😡😡
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iPhone 8 Plus, iOS 16
Unless your former employer retained your email account and is willing to give you access to it again, you don’t.
You apparently had your work email account set up as the default to sync new contacts to.
Many email accounts store the contacts on their servers, such as Gmail and Outlook. Your iPhone simply syncs them with that account. You do have the choice to manage your Contacts on your device, in iCloud, or from a third party email account. If your employer deleted your email account, they are the ones that also deleted your contacts.
To avoid that from happening you should have stored the contacts in iCloud or on your device, instead of a location that your employer has complete control over. The same thing would have happened on a Windows PC, or an Android phone, so not sure why this is Apple's fault.
How to recover phone numbers linked to deleted work email
