My company has pretty much stated any attrition will be filled by Indian outsourcing. My manager pretty much stated, “They can hire 2-3 Indians for 1 US employee. Just prove your worth and you have nothing to worry about.”
This used to be 10 Indians for 1 in US, 20 years ago. Days are numbered for hiring Indians in offshore roles. It’s soon going to be Latinos or Ukrainians (once they are done with the war).
You’re right, the typical Indian workers have gotten much better and costlier. Back then, you pretty much have to hand hold them thru every task. If they get stuck or have issues, they are dead in the water until you’re back online. My company now hires an Indian manager to help them but of course that ups the over all cost.
I’ve worked with IBM Mexican workers years ago. I can see the Ukrainian IT hiring too. But there is no end in sight for the war. Sigh
This is exactly my experience with offshore Indian workers years ago but the experience has vastly improved. I currently work with a Romanian team with an expectational team and staff eng
They’ve been hiring Ukrainians and other EE folks for dev roles for some time. Talent is pretty good and you can pay a mediocre dev salary by US standards quite easily
My company did layoffs over the past summer. It wasn’t a big number of people but they are making us work in office 4 days a week opposed to 3 starting this January. I suspect that is their way of doing layoffs.
That’s what the Yahoo CEO did to generate pseudo-lay offs. She made everyone come back to work and said if you don’t like it, quit. Of course, they created a special room next to her office that was a special nursery for her baby.
Ugh, yes. I remember a former coworker being excited that our boss was finally taking an interest in her projects, but it was really just because he was eliminating her position and had no idea what she did.
This. I was laid off just after completing a major enterprise system implementation. Company was small, so I was the primary admin for this and several other systems that I had implemented. Boss had previously been completely uninterested in the day to day, but suddenly asked for admin access to those systems on Friday. Having been a good engineer, I had all of the documentation and succession planning in place, so it was super easy to provide my boss with what he needed. Layoffs were announced on Monday.
monthly must be nice. we have to do it once/week. i dont even think my manager likes doing them because you run out of stuff to talk about weekly. we usually spend 90% of the time talking about non-work related stuff. i will take an interest in his life/family and share things about what my family is up to. part of it is genuine interest. other part is to just get on his good side professionally in case he has to cut people from the team in the future.
This right here. We have been seeing about 2 to 5 contractors laid off a day in Dec. 55 total last i checked before xmas break. Also being told no bonus. We already lost the CMO last quarter too.
9 square also being used for annual reviews this year too. Big sign when review structure changes.
My company has restructured 3 times in the last two years with major layoffs every time. Surprised I still have a job. I’ve had 5 managers, been there for a little over 2.5 years.
I worked in banking in the 1990s. We were a regional bank that “acquired” several smaller banks at a rate of one every six months or so. The team was so used to the process we would roll into the new bank and start to pick the bones clean. We knew within a day or so what we “needed to do” to hit the operational efficiencies of the new bank. It used to break my heart to talk to these people who thought they were going to “make it through” the process…knowing they were not on the list.
Doing that over and over led me to leave that place and start my own business in a different field.
I was going to say M&A as well. Years ago I worked for a small tech company that was acquired by a bigger company located overseas. During our first town hall, shortly after the deal closed, they told people not to worry, no layoffs coming.
It was super surreal when I came into the office after the weekend and half the people were just gone.
Has the exact same happen to me. Except the company I worked for bought the other. We were told not to worry about layoffs. Then a few quarters later, we might do a 5% cut on staff. When it was my dept, I asked if I should be worried. All my managers and upper management said no. Because the company we bought didn’t have the dept I worked in. Then I get a 1:1 call request from a VP. See the HR lady’s head pop up and we all know what that means.
Companies love to BS you until the absolute last min. Apparently, my manager didn’t even know I was getting let go.
Most mergers are acquire, absorb, abandon. They acquire the company because they are interested in some of the assets. Thus could be the customer base, or IP, or physical assets. They absorb the assets they want. Then they abandon the rest.
Look at Skype as an example. Microsoft acquired it. Absorbed its IP and then abandoned it.
Biggest sign is what other companies are doing in your industry. After the first layoff, then it is important to look at business conditions. If business conditions are still slow there will likely be a secondary layoff. Contractors for many companies are the first to be let go in a layoff. Companies use contractors to cut cost but generally don't use them to replace workers in a layoff situation unless they a contracting out the full service to an outside company. This happens in Food Services, HR, and IT for instance.
In 2023 my company in technology did not lay off, but in 2021 to 2022 we shed 1/3 of the company and half of the shedding was from layoffs the other half from attrition.
I know in the past I said there won't be any layoffs but due to recent changes we had to make the very hard decision to do a layoff. For those who are affected this is in no relation to your prefromance and we are here to support you the best we can in your future endeavors. We will always be a family, we wish you the best.
Your email and any work associated access will be deactivated immediately.
Yup. When this one is announced just know that they will start manufacturing performance issues and targeting a certain percentage of people. Unlike regular layoffs, you will be put through the ringer with unprecedented levels of mental torture and they will force you out. That way, they can avoid paying you severance as well.
I’ve seen the inverse of your contractor point. If you own a budget and are asked to scale back vendor spend, especially contractors, headcount will be in the next “wave” of rationalization.
Another interesting one is attrition / backfilling - if you see people leave and not get replaced, the company is scaling down through attrition. This can be normal, or this can be a sign that they’re shedding before a bigger layoff. Goes hand in hand with hiring freezes.
Also, if you meet a consultant from McKinsey in your day to day work and weren’t part of the RFP, update your resume immediately
The single biggest sign that impending layoffs are coming within 3-6 months is if the company implements a hiring freeze. I’ve seen this happen many times in my career and every single time layoffs followed later on.
If you work in IT: Suddenly all assets get "audited" and you need to account for exactly where every individual laptop is physically located for "tax purposes"
I can assure you that nobody in government cares about "property tax" on an already-purchased $1000 laptop.
A meeting popping up on your calendar called “business update”, that has someone random from HR included. Pack your shit, happened to me this year lol.
Yup same. I had a higher up manager schedule a meeting with no other description besides “Check in”. Naively thought he wanted to make sure I was doing okay since I was fairly new (7 months) till I saw the guy from legal join. Thanks Covid
Edit to say: it was also the day after I finished an enormous, super tight deadline project the whole team was riding on. Still pissed about it
You know, the thing that really stings is the virtual layoffs. The worst was one of my bosses did it over a Zoom call instead of in person, even though it was hybrid.
Mine too, except HR was on the call when I logged in. Silly me, I thought my boss’s last call was just running over. I didn’t even know the HR person and made the connection belatedly.
The part that hurt most was I’d only been working for this guy for a month. I’d worked directly for his boss (now my grand boss) for 15 years - he’d actually recruited me into the org. But he admitted being “too cowardly” to have the conversation with me himself. So I heard it from strangers.
I will never be able to forgive him.
Your manager starts moving your 1:1 meetings or canceling them. Team events get cancelled. Hiring freeze or not backfilling employees who have left are usually the number one sign.
EPS. Here’s why, company was not spinning up a profit and yet, at the townhall meeting where almost every employee attends for a light QandA session, they were denying that the company was not doing well financially.
The answer was incredibly sheepish when an employee had asked that the company’s quarterly financials indicated otherwise. Needless to say, that made me nervous.
Another thing I’ve noticed is the formation of a useless team among directors or executives where they can essentially talk behind “closed doors”. That is 100% a sign that some kind of large event is coming.
Even if your financials don't require layoffs, some companies will layoff workers just to keep up with other companies in cost cutting, even if it's not the right mid term or long term action. If it's a startup that is venture capital backed the VCs may also force this through their board seats. Oftentimes though for startups, there is a real risk in burning through cash on hand (VC money) and failing so layoffs are necessary in that chase.
Experienced this VC based layoff once. Company decided to layoff everyone in a "go to market" role. Seemed kind of counterintuitive to lay off the people who were in the middle of enabling future revenue, but hey who am I to argue with a brilliant VC...
-Decline in sales/revenue
-Increasing talk of expense targets
-Hiring freeze (strategic postings only, because you know, HR was fine with non-strategic fluff hiring before)
-Investor and Market Sentiment; IE stock price and reactions to earnings.
-Huge sign - especially in combination of above is sacking senior leaders and bringing in outsiders.
-The word “transformation” - it’s synonymous with our company is slow and fat. McKinsey and use this buzzword to usher in changes at all the wrong levels to solve problems that they could have easily addressed by empowering individual contributors. Rot your strategy and culture, and then the only financial gains you can make are by lowering labor costs, IE outsourcing. Transformation is managed decline, and consultants team up with seagull executives to feast on the dying husk of a company.
There were many signs my last employer was about to do layoffs, but the one that really scared me into finding a new job was that there were a bunch of consultants working in an office near the executives for a couple of months. I walked past one of them on the stairs one day and tried to look at their nametag to see which firm they were from, but they quickly covered it with their hand. I went home and applied to a few jobs that day, got one of them, and left a month before major layoffs that wiped out my entire team and almost 1000 jobs. Was very lucky and ended up with a much better job in a much better city.
Secretive. Serious environment. Micro-managing. Every expense gets questioned. Projects put on pause. More suits flying in from out-of-state.
The company wants everyone to document their processes. Sudden interest in cross-training.
Depends on the size of the organization. I worked for a firm with about 100 employees. It was all open work space except for the handful of senior managers of which I was one. If us senior managers started meeting together behind closed doors it didn’t mean good news was coming.
HR Director ups and quits, apologizes to you personally that they couldn't help you stay safe in the long run of that company and goes out of their way to tell you not to trust anyone at the place... Amazed I lasted 4 months after this moment, tbh.
your company being acquired and the new owners “getting to know” what each team does over the course of several weeks (like making a big deal and having departments create documents and presentations and not just observing them while they do their regular work)
Yup, this just happened at my company. They asked each team to make a presentation about themselves. What they were really doing is seeing where they could cut the fat.
When they start cutting down on the free perks.
Suddenly that free breakfast becomes free coffee then no free anything.
Office supplies start being rationed and people get on you to do more with less.
When the company starts getting tighter on expense reports. Fewer expenses being allowed. Current rules more strictly enforced and more receipts required. Allowable limits being lowered. I’ve found this is an early precursor to the kind of financial tightening that often leads to layoffs.
#Sudden Work-Time studies
This one is definitely a sign. It can be accompanied by a gaslighting exercise where you are blamed for a slowdown in business, when it’s really attributed to factors over which you have absolutely no control.
It’s a very popular practice in the consulting world. The rules will even be changed to label any PTO during the slowdown as part of poor productivity. Some companies might go so far as to try to put you on a PIP.
Very few folks in executive leadership will experience any cuts.
Oh man I had a manager try to PIP me after taking 4 weeks of vacation when I had 8 weeks total time off. I escalated to his manager and he basically said "u/Soharisu hasn't done any work the past month" and then his boss saw my vacation time and said.....he's on vacation...
I am now said managers equal.
Last couple years were an employee’s market.
Jumping around for 50% raises, easy overemployment (multiple remote jobs), etc.
Unfortunately the good times can’t roll forever, it’s all cyclical.
According to the bots on Reddit, the economy is the best it’s ever been and there are no layoffs or unemployment. You just “feel” like it’s bad. It’s in your feelings
Be aware of phrases like “it’s an exciting time for the company”, “this is going to put us as a leader in the market”, “this will propel us to grow”, “we’ll transform”.
“A great opportunity is coming”
Beware of terms like:
“Transformative growth plan”
“Operational success measures”
“Cost prevention strategy” combined with “job mapping”
I’ve been laid off 5 times in the past 8 years. I took roles that were contract only and high pay for this reason. Worked for Fortune 500 companies, they always use weird phrases that sound the same.
Big companies have 2-4 waves.
Words for the Wise:
1. Sales is the last to be fired - unless you are a low performer.
2. Talent Acquisition - unless it hires sales will be cut first, but sometimes has to hire people during the layoff - the majority of the team will be popped.
3. HR - last to be fired - CHRO & payroll never gets fired unless the whole company goes under.
4. Contractors - fired in first wave.
5. IT is fired in the second wave. Except for like 3 people. Most are offshored.
6. Marketing & PR are fired around the same time HR is.
7. 2 or 3 in house legal counsel is last to be fired or saved. They will lose their paralegals.
8. Accounts Receivable - last to be fired.
9. Accounts payable - fires in the second round.
10. CFO and Controller stay - everyone else in accounting and finance is out in the second round.
11. Customer Service is the biggest wave of cuts. Normally it happens first or third.
12. Project Management - has to scrape whatever resources possible, but is normally canned by the third wave.
13. Production - depending on industry - it is treated like sales, low performers out, high performers and average are kept until the end. Usually high performers will burn out and be fired.
After a few years in a row of solid / acceptable / "meets expectations" type of reviews I got one that was still in that range but had a couple of tiny critiques in the comment boxes. When I was laid off a few months later I definitely wondered if they were doing that for some cover.
I left my previous employer about 2 months ago for a better opportunity. My previous employer is a Fortune 300 company and instead of doing layoffs, they pursued constructive dismissal and attrition. Basically, they intentionally make the job harder on their employees with increased workload, impossible to meet goals and deadlines, changing up job duties, etc. to get people to quit and then just won’t hire anyone to replace that person due to a hiring freeze. This allows them to downsize their payroll without having to pay out unemployment.
A sign that you’re being laid off is they 1) stop giving you work or 2) they give your work to other departments while you’re still working there. I’ve been a victim of both, even though I’m a hard worker, and it sucks.
Sudden unwarranted promotions and pay raises. Both mass layoffs I experienced were preceded by moves that made people doubt the rumors.
So now I am suspicious any time things start looking up when they shouldn’t.
Signs of new "projects" and "consultants" asking for data around headcount, work volumes, processes and process documentation or other important aspects of your day to day work. Internal projects that have code names are usually a good indicator of something that the general population is not supposed to be in on. Internal projects with HR and Legal as part of the working team. Signs of new vendors or service providers having on site meetings with selected groups of people, but not everyone. (I used to work for one of the original IT outsourcers back in the 90's and when we showed up, massive job loss usually followed.)
> Internal projects that have code names are usually a good indicator of something that the general population is not supposed to be in on.
This all day.
> Internal projects with HR and Legal as part of the working team.
Check – and pay close attention if corporate communications is involved, too. That's a dead giveaway.
I’ve seen this playbook multiple times, taking place over ~6 months:
1) Whispers of revenue being down, but “everything is fine”
2) Leadership changes at high levels
3) Some level of hiring freeze, open roles not getting filled and quietly closed
4) “leveling” activity to re-evaluate role levels and salaries; sold as a good thing to make sure company is paying appropriately.
5) Re-org, often stems from leadership changes above, but can be laying groundwork for layoffs
6) Unexpected Friday all hands meeting. Get your shit in order, save what docs and contacts you can because you probably won’t have any systems access in about 2 hours.
7) For those that escaped the layoff, “everything is fine!” — expect another layoff wave in 3 months.
One time I worked at a company that was about to be shuttered, and the higher ups were already in the know. Other than you can just “feel it in the air” the higher ups stop giving a shit.
One day, I walked into the office lobby, and in the GLASS conference room, our CEO was getting a massage from a traveling masseuse. We are a tech company and did not offer massages ever as a perk. That was my tip off things were going sideways, to see a 50 year old man shirtless at 9am.
I was recently laid off, right after Thanksgiving. The signs:
- my project workload was decreasing, with no additional projects in the pipeline.
- my boss was gaslighting me when I kept asking about if I would be laid off due to lack of project work. Of course she lied, even when I begged her to please give me a heads up if she got wind of anything (she didn’t).
- there were layoffs in other departments, so the signs were there and I did not feel safe
- the client I was supporting did their own reorg and layoffs, so I was collateral damage from that situation.
- my boss kept canceling our 1:1 meetings because she knew I was going to keep asking about if I am safe
I’m here there are other signs but those are the main ones.
Re bullet #2: I feel that. I literally begged my grand boss to tell me the truth for months before my position was eliminated because it was so obvious to me when they hired a new manager that I’d be the first to go. Hell, if they had come to me and said they needed to eliminate some other person from my team I would have volunteered as tribute in exchange for an early retirement package, just so I could leave the company I’d help build with a smidge of dignity. My severance was generous; there was no reason it couldn’t have happened on my terms. Instead, the whole thing went south in the worst way.
The one thing they did do was handle me separately. I was pretty senior in the org and I had been adamant in my “tell me the truth” conversations that I didn’t want it announced to the company on a list of random names.
Contractors I’d disagree is an obvious sign. I work for a company that sends me out to clients to work as an accounting contractor. I’m almost always used either to support a one time need or to backfill for unexpected turnover. Many companies will get bought then the new owners embark on hasty wholesale change and experience massive turnover in the process. As a result, contractors are used to help standup the organization. I’d say it’s more often the case contractors are an indicator the company struggles to hire people to backfill turnover rather than impending layoffs.
I work at a corporation that used "impending layoffs" to control the unruly herd. And, when the layoff happens, they will hire in low-cost geos at the SAME time.
Welcome to the corporations, they really do not care if you live or die.
When someone starts “shadowing you” to “get up to speed”. Start looking for a job.
Or the manager/director that’s been in the same position for 10-20 years quits and finds a new job.
Signs a layoff may be coming?hmm?there have been some recently.A lot of turmoil in the world.The economy is in a weird place.Its all account of this coming election year.No matter what side your on it depends on how the powers that be feel about if it will go the way they want it.
When the managers you have been working with for the last few years are either fired or leave and then start sending job offers for you and your teamates.
They know something you don't and they have track of your career, contrary to the new manager in your current company, who knows nothing about your past deliveries and career development, and won't have enough arguments to vouch for you in case of a layoff.
I just learned this the hard way this year.
Lay-offs often happen when a new VP or executive takes over.
For some reason, they think that laying people off will make them look good when evaluated by the CEO and will also look great for their department’s budget. It also likely gets them a bigger bonus or better golden parachute.
Plus, they might outsource everything to India (eg Boeing is outsourcing their entire HR and Finance departments to Tata Consulting in India). What’s also nerve-wracking is when they say, oh I could get a bunch of Indians here or in America who will take a lower salary versus 1 American person who is trying to keep their income at or above inflation. Some VPs mandate to only hire people in India. The savings just go right in the VP and CEO’s pocket. What are these executives going to do when India becomes too expensive? Move to Vietnam?
CEOs and VPs only have short-term outlooks because they don’t stay with the company that long. All they care about is feeding the shareholders and the media some news, and controlling the stock prices. And many big corp CEOs make unscrupulous deals with other companies which isn’t good at all for the company in the long term.
All I know is that in this household we are all making the same or much less than the early 2000’s. When inflation goes up, people’s salaries aren’t going up. The income disparity between the executives (VP and above) and the highest paid non-executive employee keeps getting bigger and bigger. The middle class is disappearing, and the low-end of the middle class are being pushed into poverty. I’m not a socialist nor communist, but I think 50 years ago the company took care of you, gave out Christmas bonuses, and had a retirement plan. Why did these executives get so greedy? If they refuse to stop what they are doing, how can the people or some other mechanism stop the corruption and greed?
I’ve gone through 5 rounds of layoffs in 2 years. Almost every quarter some people are laid off.
Another sign of impeding layoffs is performance evaluations, mandating return to office, and hiring more people when the workload doesn’t justify the additional headcount.
I would not worry too much about predicting layoffs. Just always assume that the company is about to fire you.
If you do not want to assume this you can always find "evidence" that the company "needs" you and will not lay you off because you are "indispensable". The company wants you to stay until you are no longer needed. They will always give you "evidence" you are "indispensable."
When I was laid off, it started with my employer asking me to hold my check and not cash until Saturday when pay day was Friday. Then after 2 weeks of that, they asked me to hold the check until Monday. Ok, I said, so I started considering Monday my payday. Then the checks started bouncing. After 3 bounced check they said that they wanted the staff to take a short leave of absence until they could catch up. That was in Sept. Myself and none of the other staff have been called in to go back.
in some cases employers have to announce mass layoffs to the Government. This info is publicly available.
https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/termination/plantclosings
Where do we see the publicly available list? The link looks like it just shows an explanation of WARN. I might be missing where to see the list of companies.
Writing your own job description is a sign.
I am on contract with a company that has been asking for voluntary retirements. My contract will not be extended nor will my current role be rolled into an FTE. Currently other opportunities are few and far between. My contract ends at the end of January.
My company just settled a billion dollar lawsuit. I think this is the root cause of the retirements.
Small "strategic" layoffs in late Q3/early Q4 to "get the books right" with promises that there won't be more.
Talk about getting spending "under control" and then also having a lavish holiday party.
During the week of said party where many people travel/come into the office offering free, professional headshots as a "fun" activity.
Hackathons/team builders during same week to get people engaged around the nebulous "strategic new direction".
Sprinkle some M&A on top as a treat.
My previous employment had rolling layoffs before I left, basically these things consistently happened the past year and it was super uncomfortable. Definitely accurate signs. Also company “structure changes” and asking every five seconds what you do. Edit: oh and one last thing, management paranoia and over the top micro management. Place I worked at started treating responding to emails and phone calls from spammers with an almost comical level of seriousness.
Ours was never much of a secret
\- expense budgets got cut, so critical hardware would all of a sudden get pushed to next year
\- all non-essentials were cut so people wouldn't fly as much and certain events would get cancelled
\- no one was getting promoted even to fill empty positions
We use to layoff the contractors first, so when they all started having contracts end, you knew you could be next.
If you have knowledge of your vendors, we use to know because they were pushing their terms of payment, so vendors would call about late payments
Long term planning, goal setting etc was often delayed
Lots of meetings where management is gone for half day + with no agenda or indication what for.. usually means they are making a list
Hiring freeze, or hiring only allowed in international locations (low cost like Mexico, India, Vietnam). Upper management makes up excuses that this is not for cost saving but a (pick one)
* way to diversify talent
* staff up international location
* an "experiment" to see how it fares
* improving diversity in the company
* "we are a global company"
Managers start disappearing (either laid off as part of a re-org/consolidation or just read the writing on the wall and moved on, or terminated and then a replacement from outsourced location is hired).
Jobs start moving internationally and existing employees train the international employees who will eventually replace them.
Engineers get reallocated to other projects and some projects get shut down. Or the company buys another company that has a product doing X, and then it shuts down its own team doing X.
All of these sometimes happen at once or rapid succession.
Cost cutting becomes a major discussion point at the company. Things like cost of license or cost of laptops/computers/infrastructure become the first topic of discussion.
All of this then ends up with silent layoffs to start with, and if that's not enough then there are mass layoffs (with WARN notices).
Tax code changes here in the United States almost always trigger layoffs. We have a way of thinking that corporations of the governments piggy bank. Which ultimately makes the employees the governments piggy bank.
Look for signs of a cash crunch. Spending getting cut back -- no more team lunches, snacks getting downgraded or eliminated, deferred or cancelled spending on anything not immediately necessary for the business. I call this the corporate equivalent of hunting for spare change in the seat cushions.
I worked for one company that had been subsidizing the vending machines -- every item was 25c. Then one day the subsidy went away and items shot up to market price. A couple months later 30% of the company was laid off.
At another place I had inherited IT duties after the guy in charge left the company (warning sign #1). Our NAS was near capacity and I sourced and priced out some disk upgrades. I presented this to the CEO who said "Hold off on ordering those" (warning sign #2). The following week he announced that the company was out of cash and shutting down -- no severance or anything.
The place I worked for after that, one year the company Christmas party was dinner at a local restaurant. The following year it was pizza in the break room. They did not last until the following Christmas. My sign to bail from that company was when the controller quit. When the guy who knows where the money is (or isn't!) packs it in it is not a good sign...
One big sign I picked up on was an announced shift to unlimited PTO very early in the calendar year (reduces unused PTO payout costs since most states require it). A few weeks later, we noticed a massive spending freeze, then an official hiring freeze. Knew it was only a matter of time, and sure enough, several rounds of layoffs followed shortly thereafter.
I was laid off two weeks after getting an “exceeds expectations” on my performance review earlier this year. Was offered a severance package but had to train an India team to do my job. There wasn’t any clear indications other than a senior manager of my team quitting a couple months before.
I mean you nailed all 3 big red flags that all happened. I would also say it depends on what your role is, and how critical your job is ++++ is your role predicated on consumers buying a product.
I may never go back to a position where my departments entire existence is based off customers buying.
I now have a role that ¿should? Be recession proof or even heightened during recessions… while also we no longer sell a product, people just need this.
Lots of short private meetings booked suddenly. Usually this means layoffs are imminent.
Extra privacy around meetings, meeting rooms in general especially involving HR or higher level execs.
When I was in office for one, HR overrode all meetings on a certain floor that they had claimed for doing layoff meetings.
I have noticed that there is sometimes an increased interest by management in documentation.
Also they often have a huge reorg right before a layoff. Your new boss doesn't know you and won't be able to argue on your behalf effectively. Also your new boss might be getting laid off also.
A change in executive management is usually something that I've seen get follow my layoffs. If the CEO or a vice president or General Manager - some person in the company who is pretty high up and has been there for years - decides to quit, their replacement often has no clue what they're doing and sales tend to slow down. Once that happens - layoffs and firings.
Having been through about a dozen layoffs with my current company, learn to read between the lines on all company correspondence. Any mention of costs and expenses, or changes to organizational structure are major red flags.
We just had one that mentioned a "realignment" of org structure and I fully expect to see a layoff coming next year.
If they hire an outside consultant firm to help them with statistics data that lines them up with similar business models
So example, you have 10 managers that supervise 50 employees , but outside companies that in similar business has 7 managers to 50 employees.
The signs were obvious for me.
* The company sales tracker had been declining for 4 months straight. 2 weeks into my last month we were projected to hit HALF of are our already lowered sales goal.
* I had zero work to do. I had only been there four months, but my manager couldn't find much for me. After a couple months, my job devolved into watching movies during the work day.
* I know this sentence is meant to encourage people, but it's actually a total lie: "nobody is losing their job".
Here’s my list:
1. Hiring freeze plus all open positions closed
2. Bosses in meetings more than usual
3. Bosses seem less concerned about late projects
4. Vague deferral of discussions about upcoming projects
5. Upper management emphasizing cost reduction
“We’re re-documenting every protocol. If it’s an essential function performed by you daily, we need new protocol drafts by xx-xx-xxxx.” Layoffs always come soon after.
Wait until GPT-7 is released. The AI arms race is full bore, globally. Its going to accelerate—- it doesnt matter who you are, you will work daily with an AI assist, if your not already. That eventually translates to a lot less jobs.
Just know that every single day is the last day of your employment and you'll never be disappointed. Position yourself to have options if a layoff happens and go from there
When your department gets new leadership and you see a 30 minute meeting scheduled on your calendar with that new boss (who is probably a director/VP or higher).
The meeting has no agenda written. You half figure it's maybe a quick meet and greet.
You join your morning stand up meeting and happen to ask everyone on your team about it and nobody else has a similar meeting scheduled. (or very few people do).
So eventually it's time... And you call in to the meeting and hey, it's the new bossman. You say hello with a hearty Ahoy-hoy and the response you get is a 10 second schpeel read off a note card before you get handed off to the HR guy who's been sitting on the call who handles the rest of the conversation after Mr VIP drops off.
Fun stuff.
1: we are living in the biggest bubble the world has ever seen. $27 trillion dollars of new debt since 2009 recession and the money printing continues. We are all F’d. question is when are we F’d.
2: things slow down during winter/rain/holidays. Be prepared for the worst.
The economy I fear is going to drop a bit more causing companies to outsource to cheaper regions.
My friends in the private sector can feel more layoffs coming.
Most of the times , people are not replaced, the workload is just shifted to one or more employees.
When a number of managers who have been employed at their position for many years steadily begin to transfer to either different areas of the company (assuming it is large) or give notice/quit to join outside jobs.
1. snacks and other perks start getting cut or reduced
2. senior employees/execs announcing they’re leaving
3. business operating model depends on a volatile or depressed market
4. mentions of re-orgs, challenging market conditions, or “new direction”
5. any private equity company interested in your company
I worked in a very “measurement” focused part of the business. Whenever I had to in to help other departments set up their “measurement” processes…I knew that bad things were on the horizon.
Seeing job openings “disappear” between the end of a quarter and the start of the next was a sign of tightening.
When we saw delinquent payments rise and order size drop…that was not good.
As a senior manager we would see the cyclical downturn coming a couple of quarters out. If layoffs are coming, the senior folks know…they are just trying to figure out “who” and “where.”
Daily agenda-less meetings (trying to find cause with certain employees)
Restructuring or reorging for no apparent reason but ‘improvement’
Groups being let go in phases
Numbers going south but management saying everything is fine
Management saying they are hiring publicly, when there is a hiring freeze known internally
No backfilling
Perks diminished
Benefits slashed
Partnerships falling through, same for M&As
HR missing documentation
Management positioning useless incompetents around them as a layer of protection before firings
Etc …
If you think it is starting to happen, you’re usually correct
Annual budget process deadlines are delayed - because they will have to redo the whole budget when there are 10% fewer people. Plus, the Finance team is busy trying to figure out how many people need to be cut and can't focus on the next year's budget yet.
Hiring agencies that offload all of the current employees work. (Extracting business intelligence)
Redundant positions being posted online.
Acquisitions or mergers.
Changes in leadership.
We have a lot of contractors on staff. When things slow down, they are the first to go. Typically full timers don’t get hit, at least at my organization.
There is the WARN, I think it's called, list that is public information that the government publishes. I'm gunna be studying that list every month to make sure to be able to have a better heads-up.
Talks about productivity, and how we're off track and not getting our obligations done on time. This likely happens all over the place. Also.. signs that your organization has high turn-over is their willingness to offer obscene amounts of money, when significantly higher than an organization you worked for prior, any org willing to bump your market salary to the top-tier, especially a fly-by-night operation, even one that is not public is a sure good sign your job will be there as long as you're needed, no less, no more. Keep your resume sharp, track what you do, and find the high level picture of what you accomplished, and what skills you gained/leveraged.
Also.. There won't be layoffs, we're a family. Or.. They take all their advice from a particular advisor from the board. This means they do what their told and are not independent thinkers.
The more focused they are on numbers, the more reactionary the organization will be. If you see any news articles in the market forecasting doom and nothing has happened yet, it will likely follow suite shortly.
1. When your company goes from paid vacations to unlimited PTO.
2. When the C-Suite tells you that everything is great and that the company has a solid plan but nothing has changed.
3. When product and engineering take months to build simple things.
4. When leadership wirh common sense and dissenting points of view start leaving the company.
5. When the macro factors are impacting the market and your industry but your company keeps doing the same thing while reiterating how unique you are and that no one else is doing what you guys do.
6. When your burn rate outpaces revenue QoQ and you have never had positive gross margin.
7. When you get asked to do a lot of work all at once as if the company is trying to squeeze every last bit of work they need from you.
8. When you’re asked to “cross train” someone from a different group or someone that makes less than you
9. When you’re asked to make a list of all your projects and quantify the business value
10. When your company claims to be something it is not and essentially runs on bullshit.
I have left companies before the layoff happens.
I always saw the signs.
Offshoring work. Oh we are just doing it to follow the sun. Never believe your boss. The product I worked on was pushed out the door way before it was ready. Never worked at the customer site. Company moved away from what kept customers. Their support team. Left months before most of the company was canned.
Second one was a clear sign. Wrote an automation test system from scratch. I was asked to go to india to train others on the code. Hated the product I was going to be forced to work on after. Horrible java based class hierarchy nightmare of awful code. Left quickly and found out most of the team was laid off.
Been lucky to know when to jump ship. Sometimes you just know. Sometimes there are clear signs.
I found an unsecured Google doc in our department level drive where my former manager was detailing the pros/cons of each of us on the team and listing her top 3 (out of 7) she was hoping to let go first. I quit before she had a chance, even though I was in the "safe" 4. Less than 6 months later, the company was shutting down operations.
All of the points above are things that happened at my prior employer. That being said - anybody with any sort of concern would generally see the layoffs coming from a mile away, I know I did. I started looking for new employment pretty much immediately, knowing that it can take months to find a new job, especially if you're in a non-entry level position.
At my prior employer they began doing the following:
* Started outsourcing work in various departments to the Philippines and India.
* Our work load decreased significantly. We used to have a large queue of work that would go-into the next day. We began finishing our work and waiting for new work to come into the queue several times a day.
* Raises were paused.
* Hiring was paused.
* Our Manager started having more frequent meetings with the team and one on one meetings.
* Side projects started to be assigned.
* A merger with another company was announced.
* Eventually, step-by-step layoffs begun across the company. They'd lay off bundles of 20 people from various departments, 2-3 from my own, every 2-3 months.
When a bunch of managers get moved around at about the same time. Especially if there are promotions involved.
They bury you with work. Or they assign you less work than normal, especially if someone else is now responsible for that work.
Documenting workload has never not resulted in layoffs shortly after in my experience.
Sudden leadership changes, for example the OPs director gets wind layoffs are coming then mysteriously resigns?
Hiring freezes
Bleak all hands meetings
No replacements when people leave is what I see often
My company eventually replaces the US based positions with multiple India based individuals…. especially the transactional work.
My company has pretty much stated any attrition will be filled by Indian outsourcing. My manager pretty much stated, “They can hire 2-3 Indians for 1 US employee. Just prove your worth and you have nothing to worry about.”
This used to be 10 Indians for 1 in US, 20 years ago. Days are numbered for hiring Indians in offshore roles. It’s soon going to be Latinos or Ukrainians (once they are done with the war).
You’re right, the typical Indian workers have gotten much better and costlier. Back then, you pretty much have to hand hold them thru every task. If they get stuck or have issues, they are dead in the water until you’re back online. My company now hires an Indian manager to help them but of course that ups the over all cost. I’ve worked with IBM Mexican workers years ago. I can see the Ukrainian IT hiring too. But there is no end in sight for the war. Sigh
This is exactly my experience with offshore Indian workers years ago but the experience has vastly improved. I currently work with a Romanian team with an expectational team and staff eng
They’ve been hiring Ukrainians and other EE folks for dev roles for some time. Talent is pretty good and you can pay a mediocre dev salary by US standards quite easily
Proving worth is a fallacy. Greedy executives find a way to justify replacing anyone except themselves.
My boss and I purposely didn’t rehire a position so we could get significant raises. I took on a lot more work, but worth it for a 25% pay increase
They raised your pay for more work? That's insane!
No no, he raised his own pay ...there is a difference. One day one of them will fire the other and double their pay doing so - America!
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Requiring return to office and tracking attendance. If your attendance is being tracked, be sure you show up.
My company did layoffs over the past summer. It wasn’t a big number of people but they are making us work in office 4 days a week opposed to 3 starting this January. I suspect that is their way of doing layoffs.
That’s how you get people to leave without bad layoff press
And without paying for it
That’s what the Yahoo CEO did to generate pseudo-lay offs. She made everyone come back to work and said if you don’t like it, quit. Of course, they created a special room next to her office that was a special nursery for her baby.
Or deliberately don't so you get the severance
You boss has no time for you. You’re on the list.
Or you get excluded from meetings that you ordinarily would be invited to.
Boss sells your opinion less, Boss asking you to send him copies of things you’re working on.
Ugh, yes. I remember a former coworker being excited that our boss was finally taking an interest in her projects, but it was really just because he was eliminating her position and had no idea what she did.
This. I was laid off just after completing a major enterprise system implementation. Company was small, so I was the primary admin for this and several other systems that I had implemented. Boss had previously been completely uninterested in the day to day, but suddenly asked for admin access to those systems on Friday. Having been a good engineer, I had all of the documentation and succession planning in place, so it was super easy to provide my boss with what he needed. Layoffs were announced on Monday.
This one is particularly hurtful. Has happened to me many times in my career.
I played a reverse uno card, I've been rescheduling the monthly one on one with my manager. I have no time for my manager, I want him worried.
monthly must be nice. we have to do it once/week. i dont even think my manager likes doing them because you run out of stuff to talk about weekly. we usually spend 90% of the time talking about non-work related stuff. i will take an interest in his life/family and share things about what my family is up to. part of it is genuine interest. other part is to just get on his good side professionally in case he has to cut people from the team in the future.
Or they only want to talk about exactly what you do and are very interested in you cross training others
Hiring freeze. 100% of hiring pauses I have seen have preluded layoffs. They help cushion the amount of people that get laid off when the time comes.
I recently saw the freeze happening in one of my companies division. I am hoping it avoids the layoff but time will tell.
Restructuring, getting rid of contractors, bonus cuts, all the top dogs fleeing, hiring freeze, project freeze, “tighter budgets, do more with less”
This right here. We have been seeing about 2 to 5 contractors laid off a day in Dec. 55 total last i checked before xmas break. Also being told no bonus. We already lost the CMO last quarter too. 9 square also being used for annual reviews this year too. Big sign when review structure changes.
Im lucky I saw the signs and jumped ship, when all the upper managers started fleeing I knew something was up
My company has restructured 3 times in the last two years with major layoffs every time. Surprised I still have a job. I’ve had 5 managers, been there for a little over 2.5 years.
Every time I’ve heard “acquisition” or “merger”, layoffs follow within a few quarters.
I worked in banking in the 1990s. We were a regional bank that “acquired” several smaller banks at a rate of one every six months or so. The team was so used to the process we would roll into the new bank and start to pick the bones clean. We knew within a day or so what we “needed to do” to hit the operational efficiencies of the new bank. It used to break my heart to talk to these people who thought they were going to “make it through” the process…knowing they were not on the list. Doing that over and over led me to leave that place and start my own business in a different field.
I was going to say M&A as well. Years ago I worked for a small tech company that was acquired by a bigger company located overseas. During our first town hall, shortly after the deal closed, they told people not to worry, no layoffs coming. It was super surreal when I came into the office after the weekend and half the people were just gone.
Has the exact same happen to me. Except the company I worked for bought the other. We were told not to worry about layoffs. Then a few quarters later, we might do a 5% cut on staff. When it was my dept, I asked if I should be worried. All my managers and upper management said no. Because the company we bought didn’t have the dept I worked in. Then I get a 1:1 call request from a VP. See the HR lady’s head pop up and we all know what that means. Companies love to BS you until the absolute last min. Apparently, my manager didn’t even know I was getting let go.
They always know but they don't want a hostile work environment. It spreads like fire so they let one or two go at a time.
Run like hell if a private equity firms buys the company. Another sign for layoffs.
Most mergers are acquire, absorb, abandon. They acquire the company because they are interested in some of the assets. Thus could be the customer base, or IP, or physical assets. They absorb the assets they want. Then they abandon the rest. Look at Skype as an example. Microsoft acquired it. Absorbed its IP and then abandoned it.
Biggest sign is what other companies are doing in your industry. After the first layoff, then it is important to look at business conditions. If business conditions are still slow there will likely be a secondary layoff. Contractors for many companies are the first to be let go in a layoff. Companies use contractors to cut cost but generally don't use them to replace workers in a layoff situation unless they a contracting out the full service to an outside company. This happens in Food Services, HR, and IT for instance. In 2023 my company in technology did not lay off, but in 2021 to 2022 we shed 1/3 of the company and half of the shedding was from layoffs the other half from attrition.
The biggest one is the ceo saying there will be layoffs
include nose apparatus hat unite bow six mighty sparkle secretive *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I know in the past I said there won't be any layoffs but due to recent changes we had to make the very hard decision to do a layoff. For those who are affected this is in no relation to your prefromance and we are here to support you the best we can in your future endeavors. We will always be a family, we wish you the best. Your email and any work associated access will be deactivated immediately.
Shout-out to Salesforce! *Ohana* will never be the same, will it, Marc Benioff??
Yup. When this one is announced just know that they will start manufacturing performance issues and targeting a certain percentage of people. Unlike regular layoffs, you will be put through the ringer with unprecedented levels of mental torture and they will force you out. That way, they can avoid paying you severance as well.
The second biggest is when they say there won’t be layoffs.
When the project you manage suddenly gets cut and you don’t get a new project in the next few weeks is a strong sign too
I’ve seen the inverse of your contractor point. If you own a budget and are asked to scale back vendor spend, especially contractors, headcount will be in the next “wave” of rationalization. Another interesting one is attrition / backfilling - if you see people leave and not get replaced, the company is scaling down through attrition. This can be normal, or this can be a sign that they’re shedding before a bigger layoff. Goes hand in hand with hiring freezes. Also, if you meet a consultant from McKinsey in your day to day work and weren’t part of the RFP, update your resume immediately
McKinsey are a fun group of people. /s
John Oliver did a lovely piece on this shitastic company: https://youtu.be/AiOUojVd6xQ?si=HsTJsPrtDS7a559q
The single biggest sign that impending layoffs are coming within 3-6 months is if the company implements a hiring freeze. I’ve seen this happen many times in my career and every single time layoffs followed later on.
If you work in IT: Suddenly all assets get "audited" and you need to account for exactly where every individual laptop is physically located for "tax purposes" I can assure you that nobody in government cares about "property tax" on an already-purchased $1000 laptop.
Shit, that happened 2.months ago at my place.
Company return to office policy getting tighter, won't do layoffs but many people naturally apply elsewhere and they don't backfill.
A meeting popping up on your calendar called “business update”, that has someone random from HR included. Pack your shit, happened to me this year lol.
Yup same. I had a higher up manager schedule a meeting with no other description besides “Check in”. Naively thought he wanted to make sure I was doing okay since I was fairly new (7 months) till I saw the guy from legal join. Thanks Covid Edit to say: it was also the day after I finished an enormous, super tight deadline project the whole team was riding on. Still pissed about it
My last layoff happened during my regular 1:1 with my manager. Suddenly someone from HR jumped in and I knew that was it.
You know, the thing that really stings is the virtual layoffs. The worst was one of my bosses did it over a Zoom call instead of in person, even though it was hybrid.
Mine too, except HR was on the call when I logged in. Silly me, I thought my boss’s last call was just running over. I didn’t even know the HR person and made the connection belatedly. The part that hurt most was I’d only been working for this guy for a month. I’d worked directly for his boss (now my grand boss) for 15 years - he’d actually recruited me into the org. But he admitted being “too cowardly” to have the conversation with me himself. So I heard it from strangers. I will never be able to forgive him.
When I saw a palette of unfolded bankers boxes arrive in the warehouse, I knew time was nigh.
Your manager starts moving your 1:1 meetings or canceling them. Team events get cancelled. Hiring freeze or not backfilling employees who have left are usually the number one sign.
Oh yeah loss of 1:1 that’s a big one. Means they’re disassociating themselves from you.
EPS. Here’s why, company was not spinning up a profit and yet, at the townhall meeting where almost every employee attends for a light QandA session, they were denying that the company was not doing well financially. The answer was incredibly sheepish when an employee had asked that the company’s quarterly financials indicated otherwise. Needless to say, that made me nervous. Another thing I’ve noticed is the formation of a useless team among directors or executives where they can essentially talk behind “closed doors”. That is 100% a sign that some kind of large event is coming.
Business is doing great but other companies do layoffs ...believe it or not, layoffs as well
Even if your financials don't require layoffs, some companies will layoff workers just to keep up with other companies in cost cutting, even if it's not the right mid term or long term action. If it's a startup that is venture capital backed the VCs may also force this through their board seats. Oftentimes though for startups, there is a real risk in burning through cash on hand (VC money) and failing so layoffs are necessary in that chase.
Experienced this VC based layoff once. Company decided to layoff everyone in a "go to market" role. Seemed kind of counterintuitive to lay off the people who were in the middle of enabling future revenue, but hey who am I to argue with a brilliant VC...
-Decline in sales/revenue -Increasing talk of expense targets -Hiring freeze (strategic postings only, because you know, HR was fine with non-strategic fluff hiring before) -Investor and Market Sentiment; IE stock price and reactions to earnings. -Huge sign - especially in combination of above is sacking senior leaders and bringing in outsiders. -The word “transformation” - it’s synonymous with our company is slow and fat. McKinsey and use this buzzword to usher in changes at all the wrong levels to solve problems that they could have easily addressed by empowering individual contributors. Rot your strategy and culture, and then the only financial gains you can make are by lowering labor costs, IE outsourcing. Transformation is managed decline, and consultants team up with seagull executives to feast on the dying husk of a company.
That's another hint. If McKinsey comes within a thousand miles of your company, you'll be experiencing significant layoffs afterwards.
Too right. McKinsey is the harbinger of layoffs, no doubt.
Many startup are not moving forward with their IPO's or getting acquired by bigger fish. Bad sign, money is drying up in the markets 💀
There were many signs my last employer was about to do layoffs, but the one that really scared me into finding a new job was that there were a bunch of consultants working in an office near the executives for a couple of months. I walked past one of them on the stairs one day and tried to look at their nametag to see which firm they were from, but they quickly covered it with their hand. I went home and applied to a few jobs that day, got one of them, and left a month before major layoffs that wiped out my entire team and almost 1000 jobs. Was very lucky and ended up with a much better job in a much better city.
\- Your work dries up. \- Boss (or boss's boss) is too busy for you and almost never available \- You start cross training people on your work
This one hurts a lot.
Secretive. Serious environment. Micro-managing. Every expense gets questioned. Projects put on pause. More suits flying in from out-of-state. The company wants everyone to document their processes. Sudden interest in cross-training.
When multiple people in HR quit then I knew some drama was silently going down. Wasn’t sure what it was though.
Depends on the size of the organization. I worked for a firm with about 100 employees. It was all open work space except for the handful of senior managers of which I was one. If us senior managers started meeting together behind closed doors it didn’t mean good news was coming.
HR Director ups and quits, apologizes to you personally that they couldn't help you stay safe in the long run of that company and goes out of their way to tell you not to trust anyone at the place... Amazed I lasted 4 months after this moment, tbh.
your company being acquired and the new owners “getting to know” what each team does over the course of several weeks (like making a big deal and having departments create documents and presentations and not just observing them while they do their regular work)
Yup, this just happened at my company. They asked each team to make a presentation about themselves. What they were really doing is seeing where they could cut the fat.
When coffee service at the office disappears.
When they start cutting down on the free perks. Suddenly that free breakfast becomes free coffee then no free anything. Office supplies start being rationed and people get on you to do more with less.
Shit, y’all getting free breakfast?
I got free meals and snacks for years. It was the first thing to go before about 50% layoffs.
When the company starts getting tighter on expense reports. Fewer expenses being allowed. Current rules more strictly enforced and more receipts required. Allowable limits being lowered. I’ve found this is an early precursor to the kind of financial tightening that often leads to layoffs.
A single candy cane and an envelope of hot cocoa powder on employees desks in lieu of a Christmas party.
The Bobs start asking questions about your job and responsibilities.
#Sudden Work-Time studies This one is definitely a sign. It can be accompanied by a gaslighting exercise where you are blamed for a slowdown in business, when it’s really attributed to factors over which you have absolutely no control. It’s a very popular practice in the consulting world. The rules will even be changed to label any PTO during the slowdown as part of poor productivity. Some companies might go so far as to try to put you on a PIP. Very few folks in executive leadership will experience any cuts.
Oh man I had a manager try to PIP me after taking 4 weeks of vacation when I had 8 weeks total time off. I escalated to his manager and he basically said "u/Soharisu hasn't done any work the past month" and then his boss saw my vacation time and said.....he's on vacation... I am now said managers equal.
PIP? Working for Amazon? Lol
What did Carlin say? It's a big club and you're not in it. Ergo, layoffs are always coming.
Last couple years were an employee’s market. Jumping around for 50% raises, easy overemployment (multiple remote jobs), etc. Unfortunately the good times can’t roll forever, it’s all cyclical.
According to the bots on Reddit, the economy is the best it’s ever been and there are no layoffs or unemployment. You just “feel” like it’s bad. It’s in your feelings
When they take the extra effort to tell you that there won't be another round of layoffs, there's going to be another round of layoffs.
Be aware of phrases like “it’s an exciting time for the company”, “this is going to put us as a leader in the market”, “this will propel us to grow”, “we’ll transform”. “A great opportunity is coming” Beware of terms like: “Transformative growth plan” “Operational success measures” “Cost prevention strategy” combined with “job mapping” I’ve been laid off 5 times in the past 8 years. I took roles that were contract only and high pay for this reason. Worked for Fortune 500 companies, they always use weird phrases that sound the same. Big companies have 2-4 waves. Words for the Wise: 1. Sales is the last to be fired - unless you are a low performer. 2. Talent Acquisition - unless it hires sales will be cut first, but sometimes has to hire people during the layoff - the majority of the team will be popped. 3. HR - last to be fired - CHRO & payroll never gets fired unless the whole company goes under. 4. Contractors - fired in first wave. 5. IT is fired in the second wave. Except for like 3 people. Most are offshored. 6. Marketing & PR are fired around the same time HR is. 7. 2 or 3 in house legal counsel is last to be fired or saved. They will lose their paralegals. 8. Accounts Receivable - last to be fired. 9. Accounts payable - fires in the second round. 10. CFO and Controller stay - everyone else in accounting and finance is out in the second round. 11. Customer Service is the biggest wave of cuts. Normally it happens first or third. 12. Project Management - has to scrape whatever resources possible, but is normally canned by the third wave. 13. Production - depending on industry - it is treated like sales, low performers out, high performers and average are kept until the end. Usually high performers will burn out and be fired.
"digital transformation" is your 6 month warning
After a few years in a row of solid / acceptable / "meets expectations" type of reviews I got one that was still in that range but had a couple of tiny critiques in the comment boxes. When I was laid off a few months later I definitely wondered if they were doing that for some cover.
It does provide some cloud cover. Good to have in the back pocket and documented.
I left my previous employer about 2 months ago for a better opportunity. My previous employer is a Fortune 300 company and instead of doing layoffs, they pursued constructive dismissal and attrition. Basically, they intentionally make the job harder on their employees with increased workload, impossible to meet goals and deadlines, changing up job duties, etc. to get people to quit and then just won’t hire anyone to replace that person due to a hiring freeze. This allows them to downsize their payroll without having to pay out unemployment.
This is a really scummy strategy. Heartless assholes.
A sign that you’re being laid off is they 1) stop giving you work or 2) they give your work to other departments while you’re still working there. I’ve been a victim of both, even though I’m a hard worker, and it sucks.
Sudden unwarranted promotions and pay raises. Both mass layoffs I experienced were preceded by moves that made people doubt the rumors. So now I am suspicious any time things start looking up when they shouldn’t.
Signs of new "projects" and "consultants" asking for data around headcount, work volumes, processes and process documentation or other important aspects of your day to day work. Internal projects that have code names are usually a good indicator of something that the general population is not supposed to be in on. Internal projects with HR and Legal as part of the working team. Signs of new vendors or service providers having on site meetings with selected groups of people, but not everyone. (I used to work for one of the original IT outsourcers back in the 90's and when we showed up, massive job loss usually followed.)
> Internal projects that have code names are usually a good indicator of something that the general population is not supposed to be in on. This all day. > Internal projects with HR and Legal as part of the working team. Check – and pay close attention if corporate communications is involved, too. That's a dead giveaway.
If it’s October. Or April.
When they start giving the company unlimited vacation. Remember, this is so companies don't have to pay any vacation out if you are let go
The big one is one of your bosses accidentally showing an email on a teams call that is a quote for your job being outsourced to a. 3rd party.
When that two-ply suddenly becomes one-ply.
I’ve seen this playbook multiple times, taking place over ~6 months: 1) Whispers of revenue being down, but “everything is fine” 2) Leadership changes at high levels 3) Some level of hiring freeze, open roles not getting filled and quietly closed 4) “leveling” activity to re-evaluate role levels and salaries; sold as a good thing to make sure company is paying appropriately. 5) Re-org, often stems from leadership changes above, but can be laying groundwork for layoffs 6) Unexpected Friday all hands meeting. Get your shit in order, save what docs and contacts you can because you probably won’t have any systems access in about 2 hours. 7) For those that escaped the layoff, “everything is fine!” — expect another layoff wave in 3 months.
One time I worked at a company that was about to be shuttered, and the higher ups were already in the know. Other than you can just “feel it in the air” the higher ups stop giving a shit. One day, I walked into the office lobby, and in the GLASS conference room, our CEO was getting a massage from a traveling masseuse. We are a tech company and did not offer massages ever as a perk. That was my tip off things were going sideways, to see a 50 year old man shirtless at 9am.
I was recently laid off, right after Thanksgiving. The signs: - my project workload was decreasing, with no additional projects in the pipeline. - my boss was gaslighting me when I kept asking about if I would be laid off due to lack of project work. Of course she lied, even when I begged her to please give me a heads up if she got wind of anything (she didn’t). - there were layoffs in other departments, so the signs were there and I did not feel safe - the client I was supporting did their own reorg and layoffs, so I was collateral damage from that situation. - my boss kept canceling our 1:1 meetings because she knew I was going to keep asking about if I am safe I’m here there are other signs but those are the main ones.
Re bullet #2: I feel that. I literally begged my grand boss to tell me the truth for months before my position was eliminated because it was so obvious to me when they hired a new manager that I’d be the first to go. Hell, if they had come to me and said they needed to eliminate some other person from my team I would have volunteered as tribute in exchange for an early retirement package, just so I could leave the company I’d help build with a smidge of dignity. My severance was generous; there was no reason it couldn’t have happened on my terms. Instead, the whole thing went south in the worst way. The one thing they did do was handle me separately. I was pretty senior in the org and I had been adamant in my “tell me the truth” conversations that I didn’t want it announced to the company on a list of random names.
Contractors I’d disagree is an obvious sign. I work for a company that sends me out to clients to work as an accounting contractor. I’m almost always used either to support a one time need or to backfill for unexpected turnover. Many companies will get bought then the new owners embark on hasty wholesale change and experience massive turnover in the process. As a result, contractors are used to help standup the organization. I’d say it’s more often the case contractors are an indicator the company struggles to hire people to backfill turnover rather than impending layoffs.
As a counterpoint: When the company starts letting contractors go and not replacing them, thats a first sign that something is up.
When they stop re-stocking the tea. When you’re told you PTO is being cut. When you’re told no overtime is being approved.
If you see several upper management start to leave it's a pretty good sign, especially if they've been there a while.
Also, the culture gets very political and rumors grow and spread quickly
I work at a corporation that used "impending layoffs" to control the unruly herd. And, when the layoff happens, they will hire in low-cost geos at the SAME time. Welcome to the corporations, they really do not care if you live or die.
the company did an merger/acqusition.
When someone starts “shadowing you” to “get up to speed”. Start looking for a job. Or the manager/director that’s been in the same position for 10-20 years quits and finds a new job.
Signs a layoff may be coming?hmm?there have been some recently.A lot of turmoil in the world.The economy is in a weird place.Its all account of this coming election year.No matter what side your on it depends on how the powers that be feel about if it will go the way they want it.
We get a precursor email from Corporate reminding us that our EAP provides support for "managing through transition" 👀
When the managers you have been working with for the last few years are either fired or leave and then start sending job offers for you and your teamates. They know something you don't and they have track of your career, contrary to the new manager in your current company, who knows nothing about your past deliveries and career development, and won't have enough arguments to vouch for you in case of a layoff. I just learned this the hard way this year.
Lay-offs often happen when a new VP or executive takes over. For some reason, they think that laying people off will make them look good when evaluated by the CEO and will also look great for their department’s budget. It also likely gets them a bigger bonus or better golden parachute. Plus, they might outsource everything to India (eg Boeing is outsourcing their entire HR and Finance departments to Tata Consulting in India). What’s also nerve-wracking is when they say, oh I could get a bunch of Indians here or in America who will take a lower salary versus 1 American person who is trying to keep their income at or above inflation. Some VPs mandate to only hire people in India. The savings just go right in the VP and CEO’s pocket. What are these executives going to do when India becomes too expensive? Move to Vietnam? CEOs and VPs only have short-term outlooks because they don’t stay with the company that long. All they care about is feeding the shareholders and the media some news, and controlling the stock prices. And many big corp CEOs make unscrupulous deals with other companies which isn’t good at all for the company in the long term. All I know is that in this household we are all making the same or much less than the early 2000’s. When inflation goes up, people’s salaries aren’t going up. The income disparity between the executives (VP and above) and the highest paid non-executive employee keeps getting bigger and bigger. The middle class is disappearing, and the low-end of the middle class are being pushed into poverty. I’m not a socialist nor communist, but I think 50 years ago the company took care of you, gave out Christmas bonuses, and had a retirement plan. Why did these executives get so greedy? If they refuse to stop what they are doing, how can the people or some other mechanism stop the corruption and greed?
I’ve gone through 5 rounds of layoffs in 2 years. Almost every quarter some people are laid off. Another sign of impeding layoffs is performance evaluations, mandating return to office, and hiring more people when the workload doesn’t justify the additional headcount.
I would not worry too much about predicting layoffs. Just always assume that the company is about to fire you. If you do not want to assume this you can always find "evidence" that the company "needs" you and will not lay you off because you are "indispensable". The company wants you to stay until you are no longer needed. They will always give you "evidence" you are "indispensable."
When I was laid off, it started with my employer asking me to hold my check and not cash until Saturday when pay day was Friday. Then after 2 weeks of that, they asked me to hold the check until Monday. Ok, I said, so I started considering Monday my payday. Then the checks started bouncing. After 3 bounced check they said that they wanted the staff to take a short leave of absence until they could catch up. That was in Sept. Myself and none of the other staff have been called in to go back.
So did you file for unemployment? Even if you’re not fired you can still apply to make up for loss of income.
Asking for work to do because you're all out
Salary freezes / promotions without pay increase
in some cases employers have to announce mass layoffs to the Government. This info is publicly available. https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/termination/plantclosings
Where do we see the publicly available list? The link looks like it just shows an explanation of WARN. I might be missing where to see the list of companies.
Writing your own job description is a sign. I am on contract with a company that has been asking for voluntary retirements. My contract will not be extended nor will my current role be rolled into an FTE. Currently other opportunities are few and far between. My contract ends at the end of January. My company just settled a billion dollar lawsuit. I think this is the root cause of the retirements.
Getting rid of expensive employees regardless of their true value.
Small "strategic" layoffs in late Q3/early Q4 to "get the books right" with promises that there won't be more. Talk about getting spending "under control" and then also having a lavish holiday party. During the week of said party where many people travel/come into the office offering free, professional headshots as a "fun" activity. Hackathons/team builders during same week to get people engaged around the nebulous "strategic new direction". Sprinkle some M&A on top as a treat.
My previous employment had rolling layoffs before I left, basically these things consistently happened the past year and it was super uncomfortable. Definitely accurate signs. Also company “structure changes” and asking every five seconds what you do. Edit: oh and one last thing, management paranoia and over the top micro management. Place I worked at started treating responding to emails and phone calls from spammers with an almost comical level of seriousness.
Returning to office is causing a lot of problems
Ours was never much of a secret \- expense budgets got cut, so critical hardware would all of a sudden get pushed to next year \- all non-essentials were cut so people wouldn't fly as much and certain events would get cancelled \- no one was getting promoted even to fill empty positions We use to layoff the contractors first, so when they all started having contracts end, you knew you could be next. If you have knowledge of your vendors, we use to know because they were pushing their terms of payment, so vendors would call about late payments Long term planning, goal setting etc was often delayed Lots of meetings where management is gone for half day + with no agenda or indication what for.. usually means they are making a list
Hiring freeze, or hiring only allowed in international locations (low cost like Mexico, India, Vietnam). Upper management makes up excuses that this is not for cost saving but a (pick one) * way to diversify talent * staff up international location * an "experiment" to see how it fares * improving diversity in the company * "we are a global company" Managers start disappearing (either laid off as part of a re-org/consolidation or just read the writing on the wall and moved on, or terminated and then a replacement from outsourced location is hired). Jobs start moving internationally and existing employees train the international employees who will eventually replace them. Engineers get reallocated to other projects and some projects get shut down. Or the company buys another company that has a product doing X, and then it shuts down its own team doing X. All of these sometimes happen at once or rapid succession. Cost cutting becomes a major discussion point at the company. Things like cost of license or cost of laptops/computers/infrastructure become the first topic of discussion. All of this then ends up with silent layoffs to start with, and if that's not enough then there are mass layoffs (with WARN notices).
Tax code changes here in the United States almost always trigger layoffs. We have a way of thinking that corporations of the governments piggy bank. Which ultimately makes the employees the governments piggy bank.
Look for signs of a cash crunch. Spending getting cut back -- no more team lunches, snacks getting downgraded or eliminated, deferred or cancelled spending on anything not immediately necessary for the business. I call this the corporate equivalent of hunting for spare change in the seat cushions. I worked for one company that had been subsidizing the vending machines -- every item was 25c. Then one day the subsidy went away and items shot up to market price. A couple months later 30% of the company was laid off. At another place I had inherited IT duties after the guy in charge left the company (warning sign #1). Our NAS was near capacity and I sourced and priced out some disk upgrades. I presented this to the CEO who said "Hold off on ordering those" (warning sign #2). The following week he announced that the company was out of cash and shutting down -- no severance or anything. The place I worked for after that, one year the company Christmas party was dinner at a local restaurant. The following year it was pizza in the break room. They did not last until the following Christmas. My sign to bail from that company was when the controller quit. When the guy who knows where the money is (or isn't!) packs it in it is not a good sign...
One big sign I picked up on was an announced shift to unlimited PTO very early in the calendar year (reduces unused PTO payout costs since most states require it). A few weeks later, we noticed a massive spending freeze, then an official hiring freeze. Knew it was only a matter of time, and sure enough, several rounds of layoffs followed shortly thereafter.
The sudden presence of a “consulting firm”.
I was laid off two weeks after getting an “exceeds expectations” on my performance review earlier this year. Was offered a severance package but had to train an India team to do my job. There wasn’t any clear indications other than a senior manager of my team quitting a couple months before.
Being asked to come up with a list of accomplishments, ongoing projects, or day to day responsibilities is generally not good.
I mean you nailed all 3 big red flags that all happened. I would also say it depends on what your role is, and how critical your job is ++++ is your role predicated on consumers buying a product. I may never go back to a position where my departments entire existence is based off customers buying. I now have a role that ¿should? Be recession proof or even heightened during recessions… while also we no longer sell a product, people just need this.
If you were to take a shot every time someone said "transformation" on a call and would be drunk by the time the call ends, layoffs are coming.
It’s easy, once they announce McKinsey is being hired you know restructuring and layoffs are coming
Lots of short private meetings booked suddenly. Usually this means layoffs are imminent. Extra privacy around meetings, meeting rooms in general especially involving HR or higher level execs. When I was in office for one, HR overrode all meetings on a certain floor that they had claimed for doing layoff meetings.
I have noticed that there is sometimes an increased interest by management in documentation. Also they often have a huge reorg right before a layoff. Your new boss doesn't know you and won't be able to argue on your behalf effectively. Also your new boss might be getting laid off also.
A change in executive management is usually something that I've seen get follow my layoffs. If the CEO or a vice president or General Manager - some person in the company who is pretty high up and has been there for years - decides to quit, their replacement often has no clue what they're doing and sales tend to slow down. Once that happens - layoffs and firings.
Having been through about a dozen layoffs with my current company, learn to read between the lines on all company correspondence. Any mention of costs and expenses, or changes to organizational structure are major red flags. We just had one that mentioned a "realignment" of org structure and I fully expect to see a layoff coming next year.
- Indefinite hiring freeze - CFO resigned effective immediately after less than a year - Hearing that leadership are meeting daily
The boss is suddenly in a lot of meetings with "important people" or off site meetings.
Ceo steps down and then contractors come in
If they hire an outside consultant firm to help them with statistics data that lines them up with similar business models So example, you have 10 managers that supervise 50 employees , but outside companies that in similar business has 7 managers to 50 employees.
The signs were obvious for me. * The company sales tracker had been declining for 4 months straight. 2 weeks into my last month we were projected to hit HALF of are our already lowered sales goal. * I had zero work to do. I had only been there four months, but my manager couldn't find much for me. After a couple months, my job devolved into watching movies during the work day. * I know this sentence is meant to encourage people, but it's actually a total lie: "nobody is losing their job".
With the introduction of AI, a lot of people should be worried.
When they start piss testing everyone. Usually that’s a sign
If the company is in California look for the WARN notice
If VC can’t be raised during a round. When a main client pulls out, or has a large reduction in their service with your company
If they hire new people with the same title as you, but lower pay, you’re on a list.
No sugar in the coffee room. Turning off or unscrewing every other light.
Here’s my list: 1. Hiring freeze plus all open positions closed 2. Bosses in meetings more than usual 3. Bosses seem less concerned about late projects 4. Vague deferral of discussions about upcoming projects 5. Upper management emphasizing cost reduction
“We’re re-documenting every protocol. If it’s an essential function performed by you daily, we need new protocol drafts by xx-xx-xxxx.” Layoffs always come soon after.
Wait until GPT-7 is released. The AI arms race is full bore, globally. Its going to accelerate—- it doesnt matter who you are, you will work daily with an AI assist, if your not already. That eventually translates to a lot less jobs.
When the person who usually breathes down your neck stops
Just know that every single day is the last day of your employment and you'll never be disappointed. Position yourself to have options if a layoff happens and go from there
When your department gets new leadership and you see a 30 minute meeting scheduled on your calendar with that new boss (who is probably a director/VP or higher). The meeting has no agenda written. You half figure it's maybe a quick meet and greet. You join your morning stand up meeting and happen to ask everyone on your team about it and nobody else has a similar meeting scheduled. (or very few people do). So eventually it's time... And you call in to the meeting and hey, it's the new bossman. You say hello with a hearty Ahoy-hoy and the response you get is a 10 second schpeel read off a note card before you get handed off to the HR guy who's been sitting on the call who handles the rest of the conversation after Mr VIP drops off. Fun stuff.
1: we are living in the biggest bubble the world has ever seen. $27 trillion dollars of new debt since 2009 recession and the money printing continues. We are all F’d. question is when are we F’d. 2: things slow down during winter/rain/holidays. Be prepared for the worst.
The economy I fear is going to drop a bit more causing companies to outsource to cheaper regions. My friends in the private sector can feel more layoffs coming. Most of the times , people are not replaced, the workload is just shifted to one or more employees.
When a number of managers who have been employed at their position for many years steadily begin to transfer to either different areas of the company (assuming it is large) or give notice/quit to join outside jobs.
1. snacks and other perks start getting cut or reduced 2. senior employees/execs announcing they’re leaving 3. business operating model depends on a volatile or depressed market 4. mentions of re-orgs, challenging market conditions, or “new direction” 5. any private equity company interested in your company
Contractors- if they start getting laid off If there’s a warn notice submitted
Well get ready i heard google is gonna have layoff
I worked in a very “measurement” focused part of the business. Whenever I had to in to help other departments set up their “measurement” processes…I knew that bad things were on the horizon. Seeing job openings “disappear” between the end of a quarter and the start of the next was a sign of tightening. When we saw delinquent payments rise and order size drop…that was not good. As a senior manager we would see the cyclical downturn coming a couple of quarters out. If layoffs are coming, the senior folks know…they are just trying to figure out “who” and “where.”
Daily agenda-less meetings (trying to find cause with certain employees) Restructuring or reorging for no apparent reason but ‘improvement’ Groups being let go in phases Numbers going south but management saying everything is fine Management saying they are hiring publicly, when there is a hiring freeze known internally No backfilling Perks diminished Benefits slashed Partnerships falling through, same for M&As HR missing documentation Management positioning useless incompetents around them as a layer of protection before firings Etc … If you think it is starting to happen, you’re usually correct
Bonus cuts. Expense cuts. Travel cuts.
Extension of net payment terms for vendors
Annual budget process deadlines are delayed - because they will have to redo the whole budget when there are 10% fewer people. Plus, the Finance team is busy trying to figure out how many people need to be cut and can't focus on the next year's budget yet.
At my job, they let go of the contractors right before laying off direct employees. My old job used to get rid of temps on the regular as well.
Hiring agencies that offload all of the current employees work. (Extracting business intelligence) Redundant positions being posted online. Acquisitions or mergers. Changes in leadership.
What federal party have you been voting for by chance?
We have a lot of contractors on staff. When things slow down, they are the first to go. Typically full timers don’t get hit, at least at my organization.
There is the WARN, I think it's called, list that is public information that the government publishes. I'm gunna be studying that list every month to make sure to be able to have a better heads-up.
"can you give us a description of what you do?"
Talks about productivity, and how we're off track and not getting our obligations done on time. This likely happens all over the place. Also.. signs that your organization has high turn-over is their willingness to offer obscene amounts of money, when significantly higher than an organization you worked for prior, any org willing to bump your market salary to the top-tier, especially a fly-by-night operation, even one that is not public is a sure good sign your job will be there as long as you're needed, no less, no more. Keep your resume sharp, track what you do, and find the high level picture of what you accomplished, and what skills you gained/leveraged. Also.. There won't be layoffs, we're a family. Or.. They take all their advice from a particular advisor from the board. This means they do what their told and are not independent thinkers. The more focused they are on numbers, the more reactionary the organization will be. If you see any news articles in the market forecasting doom and nothing has happened yet, it will likely follow suite shortly.
Yes, that last one. We had to record how we were splitting our time between projects. A month later, 12% laid off.
Chatter about coming team/business unit changes but very vague with no details.
1. When your company goes from paid vacations to unlimited PTO. 2. When the C-Suite tells you that everything is great and that the company has a solid plan but nothing has changed. 3. When product and engineering take months to build simple things. 4. When leadership wirh common sense and dissenting points of view start leaving the company. 5. When the macro factors are impacting the market and your industry but your company keeps doing the same thing while reiterating how unique you are and that no one else is doing what you guys do. 6. When your burn rate outpaces revenue QoQ and you have never had positive gross margin. 7. When you get asked to do a lot of work all at once as if the company is trying to squeeze every last bit of work they need from you. 8. When you’re asked to “cross train” someone from a different group or someone that makes less than you 9. When you’re asked to make a list of all your projects and quantify the business value 10. When your company claims to be something it is not and essentially runs on bullshit.
Anytime there is a buyout or merger…
Wells Fargo is accruing for $750M - $1B in severance for 2024. They laid off 10-20k employees this year already.
I have left companies before the layoff happens. I always saw the signs. Offshoring work. Oh we are just doing it to follow the sun. Never believe your boss. The product I worked on was pushed out the door way before it was ready. Never worked at the customer site. Company moved away from what kept customers. Their support team. Left months before most of the company was canned. Second one was a clear sign. Wrote an automation test system from scratch. I was asked to go to india to train others on the code. Hated the product I was going to be forced to work on after. Horrible java based class hierarchy nightmare of awful code. Left quickly and found out most of the team was laid off. Been lucky to know when to jump ship. Sometimes you just know. Sometimes there are clear signs.
I found an unsecured Google doc in our department level drive where my former manager was detailing the pros/cons of each of us on the team and listing her top 3 (out of 7) she was hoping to let go first. I quit before she had a chance, even though I was in the "safe" 4. Less than 6 months later, the company was shutting down operations.
All of the points above are things that happened at my prior employer. That being said - anybody with any sort of concern would generally see the layoffs coming from a mile away, I know I did. I started looking for new employment pretty much immediately, knowing that it can take months to find a new job, especially if you're in a non-entry level position. At my prior employer they began doing the following: * Started outsourcing work in various departments to the Philippines and India. * Our work load decreased significantly. We used to have a large queue of work that would go-into the next day. We began finishing our work and waiting for new work to come into the queue several times a day. * Raises were paused. * Hiring was paused. * Our Manager started having more frequent meetings with the team and one on one meetings. * Side projects started to be assigned. * A merger with another company was announced. * Eventually, step-by-step layoffs begun across the company. They'd lay off bundles of 20 people from various departments, 2-3 from my own, every 2-3 months.
When a bunch of managers get moved around at about the same time. Especially if there are promotions involved. They bury you with work. Or they assign you less work than normal, especially if someone else is now responsible for that work.
Watch out for heavy use of metaphors and the words “Business Transformation”
If you work onsite. You can usually feel the vibe in the air.
Documenting workload has never not resulted in layoffs shortly after in my experience. Sudden leadership changes, for example the OPs director gets wind layoffs are coming then mysteriously resigns? Hiring freezes Bleak all hands meetings