Worth Reading – Layoffs Cast a Long Shadow

As I have seen others say, modern capitalism suggests that layoffs are a necessary evil, used to right-size employment and ensure the company’s long-term success.

Sometimes you have to make some cuts to get things right again.

Glassdoor decided to look at whether that was true, and that is not what they found at all:

• These companies lost $20.8 billion in the first year after their layoffs due to post-layoff disengagement and increased voluntary turnover. Layoffs trigger a 26% increase in active disengagement, and a 40% increase in the number of current job holders looking for jobs on Glassdoor, and those job seekers are disproportionately key talent. We estimate these costs at 5.2% of payroll in the first year after a layoff. Additionally, anxiety keywords appear 67% more often in Glassdoor reviews in the first year of a layoff vs. the pre-layoff benchmark, and 90% more in the second year.

https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/layoffs-cast-a-long-shadow/

Layoffs aren’t good for business. They are detrimental to employees, even those not directly affected, and I would add that they also don’t benefit customers.

The only benefit large corporations seem to get from layoffs is an increase in stock price, and that might be everything you need to know about the priorities of the C Suite. The only people who matter are stockholders, who are increasingly also those in the C-suite of the tech industry.

Is this a functioning economy?

Follow these topics: Career