What does your lease say about this?

And just to be clear: yes, you are being penalized. That is what happens when you break a legal contract, there are penalties and you agreed to them when you signed your lease. The bottom line here is that you don't have an acceptable legal reason to break your lease, and you are likely going to have to pay for it.

That being said, there are laws to protect you to a degree. For instance, your landlord can charge you rent to cover their losses for the time you agreed to pay for the lease that you are now no longer willing to pay because you are moving, but they cannot continue to charge you rent once they find a new tenant and that tenant moves in and they are required by law to make reasonable efforts to find a new tenant as soon as possible.

I also think you should look into the legality of your job moving you to your detriment so far that you have to break your lease. Depending on the agreement you have with your job, that could be illegal.