Q: I got laid off from my job and my icloud id is my old work email address. How do I get into this on my new iphone?

You can keep your user ID as the old email address; you will just want to log in to https://appleid.apple.com/ and change the email address associated with the ID.

Ona compuiter, go to -> http://www.appleid.apple.com, log in with your old work AppleID then update with new email address.

See this -> Apple ID: Changing your Apple ID

Then on your new iPhone, Setup as new and use this updated AppleID.