I'd argue it's actually better to do 25 % at once and then not doing anything like it for ... decades, ideally, but years, realistically.
Spreading it out means employees spend some of their time with an ear to the ground rather than working, and teams have to deal with multiple restructurings, neither of which are good for well-being nor productivity.
11-12% annually, so yeah a year long hiring freeze might get you to the right number. The problem is that it gives you no flexibility or control over who attrits, and removes your ability to keep critical roles filled.
Most employees don't actually take the option when presented with it. Google has offered these in the past and while I don't know the actual rate of acceptance, it was very very low based on what I saw.
60k workers, 1/4 of the workers. This is a big deal. It also really puts you into a bind if you receive the offer. Do you accept, take the money, and hope you can find a job (Now competing with many other Msft employees that are looking). Do you decline and hope you don't get hit with the layoff which hits if not enough people accept?
Can't be software engineers, from what I learned they were never really paid commensurate to value they delivered. So it must be quite economical to keep them around.
Someone on Twitter said that they're getting rid of the whole co-pilot thing. Pretty much all their AI effort. Not sure if I believe that, but who knows.
With these kinds of offers, they don't expect to get rid of 60,000. They expect to get rid of Y,000.
They make the offer to 60,000 (typically, an entire department gets this offer, including people they want to keep). Some X,000 will take the offer. If Y,000 > X,000, they they lay off the difference.
This is what I was wondering, if they have some internal math that says "15% will probably take this offer" targeting a lower number like 10k. And if they overshoot, it's not like they'll have trouble refilling positions in this economy...
You say that but the economy seems pretty strong to me, we have lower than average unemployment with above average job listings. It's harder if you're on visa otherwise it's pretty competitive
Including people they want to keep? What if all the people they wanted to keep accepted while those they didn't want to keep stayed? Certainly makes no sense.
I imagine they don't extend the offer to specific people they want to keep.
I'm still not sure what the advantage to the company of an offer like this is versus layoffs where management gets to choose who leaves, unless they feel the "loyalty test" of deciding to stay is worth more than their own evaluation of employee performance.
1. Some C-suite asshole wants headcount in your division reduced by, say, 5% next year.
2. You could do random, or targeted layoffs to hit that 5%, but this ruins morale for everyone who survives.
3. ...Or, you could make this offer, let people leave on their own, don't do any backfill, and between the two, you might hit that 5% reduction, and not have to do layoffs. (Or do very small layoffs.)
> What if all the people they wanted to keep accepted while those they didn't want to keep stayed
That's not an outcome they'd like, but it's an outcome they have to accept, in order to not piss off everyone else.
1. For anyone they want to keep who takes them up on the offer, they always have a chance to try to convince those people to not take the buyout offer.
2. If you make the buyout offer conditional to particular individuals, it will sow resentment and division.
It's generally better for the employees and the employer to do this kind of blanket buyout. If they voluntarily hit the reduction targets, nobody needs to be laid off. If they don't, the layoffs will be there, but smaller. If the 'wrong' people want the buyout, there's still a chance to convince them to stay. If they don't want to stay after the convincing, it's probably best for them to go on their way.
You can tell what proportion they want to take the offer by how generous the offer is. And indeed:
> The Redmond, Washington-based company is expecting a lower proportion to accept the voluntary exit offer because the employees included in the offer are younger and no additional incentive is given beyond standard severance for their length of service, the person familiar said. Typical take-up levels for buyouts in tech are between 3 per cent and 5 per cent, they added.
I've never been involved in such a situation, but I assume part of individual's calculation is: If I indicate interest, but the company doesn't accept it or go through with it and keeps me... am I now viewed as a disloyal, detached worker?
I've been given such an offer. The company gave eligible employees X days to opt in and then it gave itself Y days to decide which volunteers would get buyouts. This matter of loyalty perception was certainly a live question for the employees. But also the company did iterative buyouts so in later rounds there was some evidence available to the current prospects about how employees were treated earlier. Not so much in what opportunities were withheld from the "disloyal" but in the take rate of volunteers and in the probability of being "laid off" given the receipt of an earlier buyout offer.
Ahhh, I retract my previous statement. I assumed it was "do you want to accept the offer". If it is "do you want to be considered for the offer" that's a little more complicated...
very much this. I was denied 2 rounds in 2008. I knew too many of the systems to risk losing me. Was sort of ok with it in at the time, and the length of the recession made me really happy in retrospect. Today I recognize offering to be let go as risky, since upper management may see you as a flight risk, which changes future layoffs and makes you slightly more likely to be included.
In the fastest shrinking industry at the time? I think the phrase has something to do with blood and a turnip…
I was actually thrilled with my cola that year along with the required vacation time.
Honestly it was a very weird time. Less than a year prior I had worked in a real estate office, and there was a lot of scary stuff already starting to happen.
Not a problem. While it is reasonable to consider the signaling impact of all your comms at work, if you take this, they'll smile at getting closer to quota and wish you well.
Reasons to accept. Reasons to decline, but that isn't one of them.
At Google it was really rare to be denied, and if they did then it was kinda a negotiating chip for you - if you're so important to the company they won't let you leave, then are they going to pay you accordingly?
Microsoft made $134B in net income in the last 4 quarters. It used to be if you worked for a company that was printing boat loads of money that you had job security.
Now, even if the company is crushing it, they'll still see employees more as a cost center instead of a revenue generator.
AI adoption is a huge shift from labor to capital. Its history repeating, now instead of muscle power being replaced its brain power.
The amount of capex flying around requires raising funds, there have been dozens of stories recently about investors demanding higher rates for AI bonds. MSFT et al need to get their balance sheets in order to get good rates. Also, everyone is waiting for the bubble to burst, getting the house in order ahead of it is very prudent.
Big companies are notoriously overweight and need to trim down continuously. Microsoft is already a big bureaucracy and nothing like the start-up mentality it had throughout the 80's and 90's.
It's fine for them to get rid of excess weight. My guess is they could probably cut a lot more if they wanted.
With all due respect, it's just a job, and we would do well to remember that. Chasing status and respect through work will lead to sadness (reality - expectations = happiness).
I think we should buy people out with reasonable comp and let them live the rest of their life doing something that brings them joy and happiness, even if that's volunteering in what they used to get paid for. But I'm not a policymaker.
A whole lot more of us are going to get involuntarily put out to pasture through no fault of our own.
Local journalism _feels_ like more than a job. Before my CS career, I was a photojournalist for a few different daily papers. It felt like important work. We were history keepers and story tellers for a community. That's important work.
I agree that it's a job, but.. for most of humanity, people lived and worked in the same spaces with the same humans. The home was a unit of (pre) industrial production. Your neighbours were your partners, or at least involved in general economic activities with you.
Our human brains unsurprisingly still default to that, and it is quite understandable imo.
It might just be a job but someone living happy in good conditions that feels like the rug might get pulled under them for something they cannot control for is a lot more unerving even if your material conditions work out just fine in the end.
Also I think your being a little atomizing in the impact here. 1 Person losing a job is their problem, I agree. 60 thousand people losing there job is a problem for the government and society. 60K people is a lot and it has a ton of consquences. This is also leading into the prospects of we have these massively profitable corportations who are on the cusp of firing large % of high income people. Whats the tax implication of losing 60K engineering staff level saleries. Its atleast in the billions which is small in the total Federal revenue but if this is a sign of whats to come we have problems. Maybe those people go to different employment but change will effect a lot of local economies.
Granted I know you are really talking about the local emotional effect but the granular net effect is worth the conversation too.
In the US, currently, ~4M Boomers retire a year, ~11k/day, ~2M people 55+ die every year, about half of which are in the labor force; that means ~13k-14k workers leave the labor force every day in the US, ~400k/month. 60k workers leaving Microsoft is a drop in the bucket, relatively speaking. But of course, they should still get as much support as possible via the packages they accept, and getting to retirement (Social Security and Medicare benefits) as pain free and least uncertainty as possible.
> Granted I know you are really talking about the local emotional effect but the granular net effect is worth the conversation too.
I vote for and support Democratic Socialist candidates, who would implement and maintain more humane and pro worker economic systems, I'm doing my part at system levels. But systems will take decades to change. It took decades to get here from Ronald Reagan and his policies.
Certainly, people should never be in economic peril, but they also shouldn't tie their identity to their job, or think their job matters. The evidence is robust that the job does not matter.
(and if you think there is a problem with corporate earnings vs what workers take home, again, that is a political and labor organizing problem to solve for)
> In the US, currently, ~4M Boomers retire a year, ~11k/day, ~2M people 55+ die every year, about half of which are in the labor force; that means...
Sure, from a raw numbers perspective it's a drop in the bucket. But not all numbers are created equal. How does the pay of these employees from Microsoft compare? You mention those of the baby boomer generation, but are all employees who may be leaving Microsoft of the same age range? What about their skillsets and the investments they and we as society of spent in their education? Those other factors matter quite a bit, so you can't just do a simple 1-1 analysis of "people".
> Certainly, people should never be in economic peril, but they also shouldn't tie their identity to their job, or think their job matters. The evidence is robust that the job does not matter.
Why? Which evidence? I think more people could have more meaning if they were self-employed, were craftsmen or artisans, and such, but this nihilistic viewpoint (which is a hallmark of anti-social/authoritarian ideologies like DSA and others) not only doesn't reflect reality but seeks to belittle those who do in fact find meaning and joy in their work. I for one like my job and have liked most of the jobs I've had. Just because an organization no longer needs you, or you no longer need it, doesn't mean that the job all of a sudden "doesn't matter".
If people don't tie their identity to the thing they spend the most time doing what will they tie it to? Should a police officer or teacher not think of themselves through the lens of their chosen profession? When you ask a professor at your university do you want to work with one who doesn't tie themselves to their work or their research? Would you want to buy produce from a farmer who sort of doesn't care about the quality of the food they grow? Do you want to fly on an airplane built by people who think their job doesn't matter?
Listen I am not even 30 yet its a big deal when an industry leader reduces work force by 1/4. It absolutely number yeah no company ever really matters but in agrogate the little loses can be devistating for the people and the boarder economy. 4M Boomers retire is a problem if we cannot replace them and want the same set of services as before. Not nearly as many people are entering as leaving right now which makes wage pressure up but if there isn't people the business moves.
I don't really think DSA had much that would help the economy beside the basic mainstream democrat tastes. Democrats generally speaking want less monopolies, better healthcare insurance (mostly a public option) and reasonable taxation but the DSA takes things to 11 with just politically unviable rhetoric in my opinion. But most of all, I think the ideas from the DSA that work doesn't matter as long as people are taken care is likely to cost a lot people.
The Mechanic takes pride that he can fix stuff. The engineer takes pride that they can design a system. Doctors take pride that they are the reason people don't die. If you take away pride you harm a lot of people this is arguable what got the democrats (republicans voted for this too) where they are today in that they embraced Free Trade regardless of the cost. It created a rust belt that is brain washed into blaming Democrats for 100% of the harm. Fox news helps in accomplishing that that too but I think a lot of the DSA is steeped in that MAGA like style of never engage in what harms the ideology thinking and that spooks me away from that group agressively.
I’m mid 40s, so my lens is from grinding longer through various orgs (startups, non profits, academic, and enterprises) over 25 years of work experience.
There are labor shortages throughout the developed world, due to structural demographics. This will not change in our lifetime due to global demographic trajectories. This will push wages up. This is good. Wages paid are shareholder returns not paid.
We agree to disagree on DSA policies. I want the Scandinavian model to protect people. IDGAF about profits, people first, full stop. Their support is very high amongst the under 35, and 2M 55+ voters age out every year. Progress is a function of time and electorate turnover. Old people with old ideas die out, and are replaced by young people with different ideas.
Can you stop big companies from making these cuts? No, at least not without unions and laws to make it harder. So, in the short term, help these people land softly and in the long term, build better systems so that people who want to contribute have some place to. That’s it’s.
(globalization is unlikely to repeat, for various reasons)
I like your comment but I think you're generalizing too a bit in a different way. It's 60k people spread in different countries, at least four. It is still a big problem, but it's not "the tax implication of losing 60k salaries" for a single government
I do agree maybe its a over generalization but I am trying reading the waves
If Microsoft is 40% based in the US the US probably would see 20K people in high salery positions get cut if its somewhat evenly leveled. They are still okay with reducing 1/4 people (they are offering a buyout so I am holding off on the F bomb).
The invest into AI is something like $6T if it hasn't produced $6T in value it better produce it in cuts. If you expect its just going to Microsoft laying off great the government is fine but if other companies in the next months cut high paid position it hits the country in non trivial ways. But You are correct its not just going to effect the US it and that dampens the magntitude but its still a massive reduction of force for a major company
> This is also leading into the prospects of we have these massively profitable corportations who are on the cusp of firing large % of high income people. Whats the tax implication of losing 60K engineering staff level saleries
Muh job creators! You can't tax your way to growth!
Well actually, they are now job destroyers. Tax the fuckers.
I tend to agree with the idea that one shouldn't define oneself by a job, especially since one's career is generally dependent on some combination of market forces, institutional gatekeepers, and other factors that are beyond one's control to varying degrees. However, people do tend to put that kind of personal investment into things they spend most of their time on, and especially things they had to spend a long time training for. In order to realize a world where people aren't defined by their career, we would need to first realize a world in which people weren't equal parts encouraged and forced to put most of their time and effort into one, which would require somewhat different economic arrangements than presently exist
I was a journalist in the old days. With all due respect it was mote than just a job. It was a community, a calling. It felt important. I went out to dinner with my first ever boss and some original colleagues a couple of months ago and had a great time.
No, it’s more like: who is lying, Jared Kushner or Vanity Fair? The stakes are large for both, but we’re better off compared to how the regime prefers to suppress that.
I wonder if it's just me, but before the 2000s, a lot of jobs felt important, society felt important, institutions felt important.. it's evaporating now.
There was a lot more pride in professional work yeah. People cared about doing a good job. I'm not quite sure what caused the decline over 3+ decades but you could probably throw a dart at "the internet" and probably hit something partially related.
I think theres just MUCH more depression over the much more visible reality that your upper managers don't care about you or the work you put out. Especially now with AI companies pitching them a salivating dream of doing the work of 100 with 10.
No the decline is because people woke up to the fact that it doesn't matter if you take great pride in your work and work unpaid overtime and always produce quality output: you will still get laid off when the economy explodes or when some VP decides to cancel your whole product division. It doesn't matter. You are a sucker if you go over and above every day to the benefit of the company.
That's the end tail of capitalism. All that matters is the group / shareholder benefits and growth. It was useful to amplify trade skills and efficiency long ago but people pay the price in a different way.
> I'm not quite sure what caused the decline over 3+ decades
Finance. Everything is a number to be optimized that must constantly grow. The US abandoned antitrust, worker protections, social safety nets, and more in the name of greed.
For workers to care you need to treat them as humans. People care about a team and a family that care about them back.
The mythical story of the person who started in the mailroom and worked their way up is gone. The mailroom, secretary, custodian, and as many roles as possible have been replaced with contractors without benefits or any future in the building they currently work in who will facelessly cycle out in a few months for another contractor.
Employees have been abused too much to believe the lies. If I work twice as hard, my reward is a sub-inflation raise and no realistic hope of promotion. Feedback employees give is ignored, so there's no motivation to push to improve things. The management class has a desperate dream of all people being fungible so they can throw them out and get cheaper ones, and fungible is what you get - if you want a generic interchangeable cog, that's what you get, but don't complain about how the cog doesn't "care enough".
I was strangely ahead of my time in a negative way. Spending way too much time alone with computers, didn't care about society, jobs were just jobs, life was meaningless. I recovered and feel much better and much more stable although I was never properly socialized so I still think society is "meh" and jobs are just jobs but some part of me wonders if all of you normal guys are starting to get depressed or something. Many things people say remind me of my 15yo self.
I had multiple phases in my life. Simple min wage jobs, long isolation, IT jobs.
Even in bakery, coffee shop, repair, deliveries.. you feel happy about your simple skills, happy to serve people that need a little bit of what you do, even serving coffee quick and clean.. in a team of people who know how to organize themselves. It can be exhausting, limited.. but it felt better than digital gray fog we're going in (graeber would say bullshit jobs).
And previous generation had even a different culture, my mother keeps telling me how warm and fun it was to work in the 70s. No easy job, 1000~ customer restaurants, but the way people approached jobs, belonging, connection.. was different. I witnessed the cold privatization of her building around 2000s, it became more a factory than a place to drink coffee and eat, everything was stiffer and came from high above management who didn't work with employees.
Without getting too political, these were the days when the press controlled information and appointed themselves arbiters and gatekeepes of information.
The internet and free information showed them up for what they really were: biased cavemen like everyone else, and the aura vanished.
>A whole lot more of us are going to get involuntarily put out to pasture through no fault of our own eventually.
And that is going to have predictable consequences like increases in suicides, substance abuse, etc.
A job might "just be a job" but I'm growing tired of this trend online of treating work like it isn't important for most people's sense of worth, place in society, and overall mental health.
It’s just an excerpt and not applicable to some but Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet has a good if longer bit:
“Are not all careers the same? Filled with demands and people filled with animosity towards the individual. At the same time absorbing the hatred of those who have silently and sullenly adapted to dull duty.”
This is correct, but the entire structure of modern industrial society is not based on what should be now that more and more people realize its flaws.
"Your sense of worth should not be tied up in your job" only does so much when the average person's reality is that his or her job is the means by which they survive/thrive economically, a primary factor in whether or not they attract a partner and reproduce, etc.
The dream, when possible: to continue to perform work one enjoys without an economic requirement or component. It would be great if we could do this for more people, whenever possible, via systems.
Some things are more than just jobs - they are callings. Journalism and teaching are two. People wouldn't do them if they were just jobs, because they don't pay enough to cover the headaches.
The issue is that several career tracks have some form of low pay, filtering, or outright hazing when you start out, with the promise that if you stick with the program, you will end your career at the top. Medicine, law, etc. If that promise is taken away, a lot of people on the job and in the education pipeline would be questioning whether it was worth the pain points (and not thinking about reforming and improving the entry level experience, lol). In the US this is one of the fears around socialized medicine.
Another problem is those career arcs are so long, where in something like tech or consulting, if you stick with it for 5-8 years you historically have a lot of seniority over new hires.
Is that due respect? That may be your perception of work now, but how many people have much of their self esteem bound up in the work they do at their current place? I want employees and coworkers like that. But what you’re talking about is both life under Late Stage Capitalism and also a bit of blindness as though someone being squeezed by the death of newspapers could just find a different newspaper job.
Just 300? I’m at about 2000-3000. Just got my latest rejection after 5 rounds and 3 weeks.
At this point I can’t afford to apply to tech jobs anymore. They require you to be available for an hour randomly across multiple days and have shit like the ceo “needing” to meet you and then rescheduling last second because something more important than you came up.
All the jobs available to someone changing career right now give you maybe a days head up on your schedule and a 30 minute lunch if your lucky.
The interview process for tech has become a class barrier in of itself
After suffering a stroke, he was "put out to pasture", which for a journalist means he was sent to cover city hall meetings in some suburb. Eventually, he retired with some much smaller payout than what the last buyout would have given him. The sense in the family was that the collapse of the industry denied him a dignified last decade of work.
I think your dad did the right thing.
No, he didn't get the big dollar signs. But he did get a decade worth of health insurance, employment, and more security for his family than he would have had going out looking for a job on his own.
There are no good choices in that situation. But I don't think he made a wrong one.
I've a neighbour who declined, and then got hit by layoffs. It was quite a gamble, and they lost out big time.
Honestly, if work was to come at me with a buy-out offer, and I was in a position to be able to afford to not work for a few years, I'd probably accept. Maybe go find some non-tech work for a little bit to stretch the dollars and ensure I have health insurance.
We're in such a bubble at the moment, things are going to get really rough.
Often, buyouts terms are more generous than layoff terms. Even if the company has a history of generous layoff terms, the next one may be less generous.
The other thing to consider is if you'll want to keep working at the company after so many people have left due to the buyout and the layoff. If not, taking the buyout and looking for a new job is likely to be better for you than not taking the buyout, not getting laid off, and looking for a new job once you conclude you don't like the new environment. For one thing, you'll probably have buyout compensation and new job compensation at the same time; for another, it may be easier to find a new job if you're in the market before the layoffs increase the hiring pool.
Yeah, I survived several layoff rounds at a company and my workload increased significantly. At first it was fine, even better in some ways to have more responsibility. Then the subsequent layoffs added too much, and we lost a lot of people with institutional knowledge, so I was being handed work with no one to talk to when I had questions.
tl:dr One round of layoffs isn't bad if you're staying, but subsequent rounds can make you miserable.
buyouts usually imply a far more generous offer than just termination and severance.
also means they can dodge any NDA / wrongful termination / bad behavior issues on the way out. sign the doc and play nice and get $$$.
keep in mind the US doesn't have great protections in that regard, so "severance" may be them allowing you to collect the last of your crap on the way out and paying you through the end of the week.
Ex-softee here, laid off last year after 32 yrs. The current buyout is the same package I got. The recent voluntary package to old-timers a few months ago was also the same with one important distinction - 5 years of COBRA, which would take a 60 yr old to Medicare age.
I know its very similar to the equivalent amount of cash but it feels a lot different. I feel like half my desire to work is connected to healthcare for the family.
Layoff severance isn't great and it's very common for companies to use the performance system to get rid of people. Suddenly someone stops meeting expectations and are gone within weeks.
Not to start an argument, but do you really think you could easily find non-tech work that also provides health insurance? I get a little triggered at this line of thinking. People often day dream about working as a Costco receipt checker without realizing you literally have to work your way up from seasonal to part-time to full-time over years. And that's assuming you can even get hired as a seasonal worker with a 5+ year unemployment gap on your Resume (your SWE career).
I'm realizing I'm a little bit too passionate about this lol but I would love to hear if you have a specific plan or goal in mind so I can copy it. For me BaristaFIRE would be ideal, but with so many friends going through the layoff/unemployment cycle and hearing their experiences I've concluded it's much more pragmatic to stay in tech.
> with so many friends going through the layoff/unemployment cycle and hearing their experiences I've concluded it's much more pragmatic to stay in tech.
If so many of your friends are becoming unemployed, isn't this a sign of things to come? If people keep getting laid off in tech, what is the motivation to stay there if you might be next?
Like you, I'm confused by the dreams people post about working low-paid jobs if they're laid off. If the job market is flooded with tech workers, all these jobs will become even more competitive than before, and wages will fall. If you think your own career in tech is actually in danger (as in, you don't think you have any skills that couldn't be fully automated in the near future), I think the best option is getting some different education to put some barrier of certification between yourself and the rest of the desperate job market. But it should be something that's highly employable and difficult to automate, which is a scope that keeps narrowing.
87% of full-time private sector workers have access to employer-subsidized healthcare. On average employers pay 82% of the cost for an individual and 73% of the cost of a family. To use BestBuy as an example: Reddit threads suggest costs range from $100/month (as of 2021) to $250/month (as of 2025).
This is all a bit out there, but I moved to New Zealand on a working holiday visa, and within two weeks of settling down in a particular spot (after a two month road trip), I had two job offers, one very relaxed retail, and one tech-adjacent for a small civil engineering firm. I'm making about a quarter the take home I did in the US, but I've cut my expenses a lot (bought my car in cash, carpool to work to save gas money, rent a room in a house instead of a whole apartment, no food delivery), and I'm using this time to reevaluate my values and work on building a lifestyle that does not rely on earning a six figure salary.
My plan when I return is to get my EMT and moonlight as an ER tech while doing prerequisites for PA school or maybe medical physics.
I heard a lot of doom and gloom about the economy before I came here, but finding a job proved to be straightforward. The pay leaves a lot to be desired, and I'm not intending to extend my visa because of that.
Caveat: I'm not living in a typical region of the country, I'm in Wānaka, which is easier to find a job in but also more expensive than most of the country.
Just any relaxed job in NZ will not let you extend the stay beyond 3 months, no? The employers who are employment visa approved are milk-cow-bank-insurance companies very difficult to get into, not mentioning the overall crisis right now.
Ah... it's working holiday visa, I never qualify for this bullshit.
I’ve been in the industry a long time and benefits at FAANG are not great. Deductibles are high, subsidy pretty average, overall package weak. Earlier in my career I paid nothing for insurance, had a lot of fringe benefits, and I was genuinely grateful for the perks. I’ve looked at ACA alternatives compared to my FAANG benefits and it wasn’t a huge difference frankly - better on the margin but nothing to write home about, at least in my local market.
The fact people have to find a job not for money but for health insurance is about as dystopian as I can imagine. Toil just to not get sick and go broke, not because you need the money. What a sad world we built for ourselves.
Sad country, just US. Rest of the western world works much better. But this is what US population wants, more direct money at all costs and praying all the time no nasty health surprise is around the corner. Otherwise you are a commie or worse. Higher education is exactly the same.
Given overall health of US population thats not a good bet and it only gets worse with age.
I think no one wants this personally, but there is so much money - and employment - behind the private pay system that it’s virtually impossible to reform it. There is also a real aspect that the system was designed by those in power to further a necessity to work, an overriding fear that people might idle or not work with maximum productivity. Once the system was laid down. With dozens of huge insurance companies and even more smaller ones, with billing departments, coding clerks, adjusters, claim processors, duplicated at every clinic, hospital, insurance company, and the constellation of other roles, partners, providers, it’s now employing millions of people just to operate this hideous machine of national suffering. Talk of reforming it into a single payer system or a socialized system is wildly unpopular with everyone who depends on the current system - millions upon millions of people, and deep spending companies supporting candidates. In a country where either politicians either win by a landslide due to partisan politics, in which case it doesn’t matter what constituents think, or the margins of victory are so narrow that you can’t afford to screw over millions and millions of people through direct action like legislation, the system is metastasizing. There are solutions to the health care problem from a consumer point of view, but the churn it would cause on the employment side would be profound and structural. My view is probably the best strategy is make money young here and emigrate to a place worth living, which is painful to say.
There’s very little I can see truly breaking American society but I think the stark stupidity of health care here is up on the top.
These systems seem unbeatable but thats just an illusion. Either market forces will make it so unattainable that people will simply revolt due to frequently dying from stuff thats curable in Haiti, some saner politician in style of Kennedy will come and make change (with very high risk of getting killed but that risk is there in all cases, see mr trump) or some other massive shock will happen. System in US is so twisted and unfair where 99% lose, sometimes in very life-destroying manners.
Shocks do come, nothing is static. One may end up bankrupt earlier than correction happens though. Vote with your feet if you want change earlier than it coming from the top.
I haven't had any coverage in 3 years. It's not the end of the world. People who lose their shit over weird tail risks are missing out on the competitive advantage. You can compensate for the expensive doctors and prescription meds with more exercise and cleaner diets.
I always looked at employer sponsored health care as a sort of trap. I never got involved in it. Every insurance premium I would have paid has gone to a retirement, investment or savings account instead. One big open runway is a lot more useful than a bunch of smaller ones with weird constraints. The idea of a health savings account amuses me.
I've spent most of my career non-FAANG. Health insurance has been fine previously, and mostly I know folks outside of the tech industry having similar coverage. FAANG health insurance isn't that great a thing these days. It has been nickled and dimed about as much as anything else.
Just because the offer is made to 25% of the workforce doesn’t mean they will all accept. These are generally very well paid jobs and the prospect of entering the job market right now isn’t going to appeal to everyone. Especially not when you have upcoming RSU vests after a recent 50% stock rally. If say a third of the employees accept then it’ll be an ~8% reduction, which is in line with a regular company-wide layoff.
There is a difference this time though. There has never been a time in last 40 years where being laid off seemed terrifying for knowledge workers in tech. It's speculative what's ahead, but man, does it LOOK bleak. Many would still come out OK, but it's not a given.
> There has never been a time in last 40 years where being laid off seemed terrifying for knowledge workers in tech.
How about the last several times all of big tech was laying off tons of people at the same time?
I'm not going to disagree with "this time it's different", but I've seen this fear several times before. This time it's AI that's going to take our jobs, and maybe that will happen, but it's not the first threat.
It's incomparable the difference now compared with say layoffs in 2022
Back then, you might think the market was a bit cooler, but talented engineers were still in massive demand. Growth in tech was stalling but a massive reduction in demand was very unlikely
This time there's a real chance that in 10 years we have 50% or less the number of software engineers today, if the job title still even exists as we know it
Of course if you only go back as far as 2022 it’s massive right now. Consider dotcom bubble burst or 2008 and it’s actually still not as bad (although I believe it will soon become so).
Things during dotcom crash looked at least this bleak. Easily. It felt like every company on earth (at least in tech) was crashing and firing people. Even high-flyers like Google absolutely stopped hiring.
If you were lucky, you got laid off with a severance. If you weren't, you showed up to work one day and the doors were locked with no notice.
As indicated, they don't expect a very big portion of the 25% to accept at this time. Probably about one third, as it was before.
Considering that the offer seems to be familiar and not more lucrative than ordinary separation, I would estimate the target is a 20000 headcount rapid reduction by December. If that's not accomplished this time then I would expect further action until that short-term target is met as early in 2027 as possible. Probably by offering to many who were not included this time.
This is actually pretty drastic, enough to be considered overkill adequate enough to weather economic downturns extending for quite some time, it would be much more foolish to err on the side of inadequate.
After 20000 is hit, I would expect no further cutbacks for well more than a year unless things turn miserably worse faster and steeper than their top people could imagine based on what they know now.
When they offer a package YOU ALWAYS TAKE IT. It means that layoffs are coming.
My friend's company offered a voluntary severance package to a bunch of employees. She was talking to one of her employees and she knew that he was going to get laid off if he didn't take the package but was unable to advise him. I think the voluntary severance was 2 years medical, 2 years of vesting, many months of pay, etc. But he decided not to take the offer and was laid off for a much worse package a few months later.
It really depends on who it's being offered to - if it is literally EVERYONE you need to evaluate it on a case-to-case, but if it's a small targeted group, you probably should take it.
Also if you're a manager you should be able to make it pretty clear.
The interests might be aligned albeit for different reasons. A corporation laying off a huge number of employees is facing reputational damage or regulatory consequences. That doesn’t mean you gain any benefit from their pain. Maybe you could sue for wrongful termination and keep your job?
Having been in a company for many years, that every so often had these packages, I disagree.
Yes, of course it means layoffs are coming. This isn't a conspiracy. The whole point of these packages is "We want people to leave. The more people who take the package, the fewer the number that is laid off."
If the package is going to only a small percentage of the company, then yes, it's a sign they'll get rid of you. When it's offered to such a large number, then it's just a lottery to see who'll lose their jobs. Like all lotteries, the chances of you being impacted are low (e.g. 10% was the max in my case).
Well, it’s often a big payout though, and taking it can be a nice bit of cash if you can line up a new job quickly. But I’d be the first to admit that likelihood seems to have plummeted for everyone (except for the geniuses who develop the AI models themselves, who are in a ton of demand.)
It obviously depends on the specific amounts of the package as well as the timeline and personal impact of the upcoming layoffs (the latter of which you can’t know).
The company doesn’t necessarily want everyone to take the package, and they’re inevitably going to price the separation benefits such that some employees would end up better off taking it and others would end up better off not taking it.
They'd just rescind it. They aren't usually set up as binding contracts where the employee signs on the dotted line and it's immediately binding. It's more like an expression of interests which then leads to an exit contract if the company wants.
If you take it you're not eligible to unemployment. I think in this market, given the undefined length of employment searching at the moment, that's a major consideration.
I would assume a lot of the types of people you're talking about are in fact not Microsoft employees, it's way more common these days to hire people like on-site cooks through agencies that effectively make them contractors for Microsoft. This notice is definitely about "corporate" employees, and I believe another comment noted that in a different source it's stated that sales and marketing are not even being offered this deal.
States like Florida cap out at $275/week with a maximum of $3,300 (over just 12 weeks). McDonalds pays around $16/hr according to indeed. Unemployment almost might as well not exist.
Yeah, it’s really not for us, it’s more about tiding over a laid-off retail worker so they don’t get evicted. Not allowing someone with a mortgage in Cupertino or Redmond and little savings to keep their lifestyle mostly intact with just a little belt-tightening.
And I’m not saying that in a grumpy way. Yes we do have much higher salaries, and because of that it’s reasonable that it’s on us to save up for this type of rainy day, in accordance with our own personal risk assessment.
It’s honestly something I spent 15 years rarely thinking about, because while I’ve seen many RIFs, I was never worried since getting a new job was as easy as just responding to a few of the messages that constantly came in via LinkedIn or email. No longer.
For most Microsoft employees, the maximum unemployment benefits in most states are a rounding error vs the buyout offer. Here in Missouri it's $320, maxed to 20 weeks. So for most local employees that might get this letter, It's less than a month of salary, and that without accounting for months of health benefits, which I bet the buyout includes.
Unemployment in WA where Microsoft is headquartered has quite generous unemployment. Max of $1208 a week up to 26 weeks and based on your previous salary so most certainly ex-Microsoft will be maxing this out.
Always? What I’ve seen is sometimes the buy out is no better than the current severance package. Might as well ride it out. The severance could in theory get worse over time but that doesn’t seem like a worthwhile reason to throw away your job. You’re also throwing away unemployment.
Eh, the voluntary severance offered at Google in various European countries recently was less than the negotiated payout for mandatory layoffs. And most of the headcount from people who took it was backfilled, too.
Sometimes--very rarely--one's ethics may dictate not taking it, as with the "fork" email to U.S. Federal Government employees. Or when an early-stage company layoff is being done in tandem with a buyback/tender to reduce employee ownership before the board does something crazy.
A couple of times in my career, I was one of those who were not given out a buyout. I was chosen to keep the lights on while the number of employees shrank every month. It sucked. I was given responsibility for systems with no documentation or than a username/password. I was called by all sorts of people I had never spoken to who had their hair on fire because the system was breaking left and right. I wished I was given the buyout; instead I was told I should be grateful I had a paycheck. No thanks.
Yep I was at place where the skeleton crew couldn’t keep systems up. Weeks long outages of critical systems. It was hell for the ones who remained, i pitied them.
typically in that case the boomerang is they come back but as a consultant. just doing the same thing they were doing before but at a different rate. usually higher to cover health ins plus a bit of a bonus.
You cannot act with perfect information when you're making an offer to 25% of a company that size. If they were able to and willing to plan this on a per-person basis, they wouldn't be in the position of mass-buyouts.
It's very common in these situations to target every org in the company with a goal of X% reduction. If a small fraction of these teams now need extra headcount, easy enough to allow those teams to hire. Usually you don't keep the severance if you return in under X days.
I've personally been laid off, only for the post-re-org team to hire several people, including asking to rehire me. It's rare, and those affected should probably plan to find new jobs, but it happens.
I have been through a similar situation at a former employer, during the aftermath of 2008 crisis, and is complicated.
Exactly as you place it, the way they found out to push for buyouts was to terminate existing positions.
Everyone was forced to decide between taking the buyout, or apply to internal positions instead, naturally the later was much more complicated than just taking the money.
If you get the offer take it and start your own company with it. There's no use in staying if you're not wanted and even though you'll get a severance package it won't amount to much more than a couple months back pay.
Didn’t Microsoft have an issue with VP Vance regarding layoffs and all the perm processing were stopped. So why is MS doing this which will bring more trouble.
The worst case scenario is not taking the offer then getting let go for performance, which means zero severance, health insurance terminated same day. This has been happening at Microsoft for the last few years, sometimes in large waves. Many of these people were not egregious non-performers, just people who had been marked as not quite meeting expectations, and thought they had another chance.
The worst case scenario is not taking the offer then getting let go for performance, which means zero severance, health insurance terminated same day.
That's generally not legal in the U.S. or most of the EU. The company would have to establish a very significant paper trail to establish that these individual "performance-based" layoffs were not part of a layoff subject to WARN regulations (or their European equivalents which are even stricter). The hurdle is so large that no company has successfully pulled off such a feat, and many of the companies that tried ended up paying significantly more in penalties to their local Depts of Labor than they would have saved with this stunt.
I don't really know the legality of it, but I can tell you that last year around April there was quite a big wave of sudden performance terminations within Microsoft and these people did not get severance. I know because I was a manager of one of these people and had to deliver the news. I know that many of these people had had a below 100 rating on their previous performance review, but we were unaware at the time that this meant a death sentence for these employees several months later when we got the email a few days in advance of the termination. It was hundreds, if not thousands of affected people.
What's legal and what's enforceable are two different things. Also the US is extremely muddy in these legal waters because, sure, Federal laws and the Department of Labor are supposed to enforce such actions. But most US states are "At-Will Employment" states which means that companies do not even have to provide a reason for a termination, which means there's no paperwork that really gets sent to the Department of Labor to enforce anything at all.
(Not to mention that companies have spent decades perfecting the "layoffs are coming in a quarter or two, send out performance reviews now and encourage managers to be extra 'honest' and nitpick everything so that we have a written record just in case we need to fire people for performance to make the layoff seem smaller" dance, including Stack Ranking being built to be that smoke 100% of the year, every year. Still technically illegal, but if the quiet parts aren't said out loud who are you going to believe, the months ahead of time paperwork in performance reviews or that executives decided they needed harsh performance reviews months in advance on a golf course somewhere? It's not a conspiracy when it's so easy to pull off.)
Mass terminations without timely notice, or pay in lieu of notice, are not. Disguising a mass termination as a collection of "performance" based individual terminations is a method that many companies have tried and failed, because...get this...WARN regulations in the US and EU don't care about the reasons for termination unless it's a "for cause" termination and you absolutely need to document the cause for those.
I don't know what other people's experience is. But as a nearly 50-year-old software engineer with 25 years of experience, I find that there's little to nothing out there right now.
I don't know if it has to do with my particular tech background, the fact that I live in Austin and everyone and all the remote jobs are gone, but it used to be pretty good out there, and in the last year it seems like there's almost nothing at all.
This was announced back in April. Lot better than doing layoffs imo. If someone is already checked out then giving them an incentive to leave works out for both sides.
There's no way 25% of their total employee base are "checked out". Yes, a bunch of folks close to retirement or fed up with working there will take the deal. But with the job market as it is, a whole lot will roll the dice on keeping their job through the inevitable follow-up round of layoffs.
This is just an optics-friendly way to soften the blow of 25% layoffs.
This is my experience too, although probably not checked out enough to take a voluntary severance. Most people just want to chill and work at a steady pace. That kind of work ethic is fine for most industries, but not tech companies unfortunately.
It is much better than optics friendly, because it gives the affected people a chance to determine their own destiny.
Layoffs absolutely suck, and there is likely more pain on the way, but if the alternatives are voluntary buyouts + layoffs vs plain layoffs, the first is much better.
These layoffs are to give folks who want to leave the chance to leave. Many people are unhappy after layoffs because they would have happily given been laid off if it meant saving one of their colleagues. I honestly think it's not in Microsoft's interest to offer it given the fact they'll on average lose higher quality employees. We should really be celebrating it to encourage them to keep up the practice and others to adopt it.
I think the April instance was a different one all-together but that was also followed with layoffs in July. Seems they expect less than 30% of the 60,000 to take the deal?
So "Up to" 39 weeks of base pay, let's say 9 months.
In this job market, that may not be enough time to feel comfortable and safe taking the offer (if you're a super-employable hotshot with offers awaiting in your LinkedIn, you're probably not the likely target for the offer)
You are getting downvoted but I have to believe this is at least what some of the executives are thinking, even if it proves to be a complete illusion.
Not necessarily. If there aren't enough tasks to make use of this increased productivity, it makes them less valuable, because they can get away with fewer.
The downvotes on your comments are weird. Maybe coming from an emotional place. I get it, I wouldn't want to be constantly reminded that the career I sacrificed so much for is a dead end. But it's true, at big companies there may be a ton of items in the backlog but none of them bring in more money. Having a bunch of idle engineers sitting around wastes money, and LLMs allow more engineers to do less. Why would a responsible VP keep around expensive employees who don't contribute to revenue?
Microsoft employees (developers) were told during an internal keynote that we need to be more judicious about using AI because it is expensive, makes some tasks take longer, and there is no evidence supporting increased productivity.
The prior VRP shook out a number of folks who were banking their options grants -- it was like "look let's be clear, you're not moving up any more and you're checked out. Thank you for your service." I'd imagine they were happy enough with that to go a little broader. The pay scales work out to getting paid more the longer you've been there. Mentioned in the memo is employee choice, and I think that this is likely designed with that in mind - why not let people self identify without penalty when you want to reduce headcount? The goal is likely to increase morale for those who want to stay, both by showing them they have the ability to stay, and getting low morale people out the door.
nondisclosure of compensation package and disparagement clauses are usually on the contracts as well. People don't want to tip off the H1B guy he makes 40% less than the dude standing next to him. =3
YMMV = Your milage is controlled by law, and cannot vary.
You can sign broken contract freely - it's unenforceable, so you can sign whatever paper HR hands to you, and only when you're retaliated against do you need to care. Which coincidentally is when you stop needing to be cooperative anyways.
Don't "YMMV" your way out of laws that protect you.
Some contract clause meanings have physical location dependence on where they are signed. That is why one should always consult local legal representation as well. =3
Still, there is no regional or federal law that can prevent someone talking about their wages in the US.
We have this thing called freedom of speech that the courts take pretty seriously (usually).
The whole don't discuss how much you get paid, because its poor etiquette is an anti-worker old wives tale created by HR people last century. Its a complete myth, but most jobs Ive worked at there's always someone who is extermely afraid to discuss the topic out of fear of breaking a non-existent rule. The psyops worked.
The US NLRA at one time excluded several categories of workers like Managers etc. I don't think there was any sort of intentional deception other than the tired old game of bidding down labor costs.
ymmv, as living in an ivory tower means I may be unaware of current US rules.
>We have this thing called freedom of speech
That may be an old wives tale, as corporate money is defined as speech now. =3
I was making over market rate on H1B. The petition process forces the employer to pay market rate or above.
Also the transfer petition is very easy and it usually takes 2-4 weeks. You can argue that changing jobs is higher friction for H1B workers, but if you are offered more salary elsewhere but decide to stay, well, that’s kind of on you, not the H1B process.
> Another key point is that H-1B employees rarely change jobs, since their visa is tied to a specific employer.
That statement is fake news. And not sure why they have to lie if all this data already backs up their claim. Oh wait, if it wasn’t for this BS claim we would question the market forces and not buy their BS…
I changed my job 3 times in 2 years on an H1B. Standard paperwork. In fact, the last one was during the company I worked for was being acquired so I had 2 petitions at the same time. Didn’t lift a finger for it. Well, other than signing the papers sent over to me.
I can get behind the claim that H1B workers negotiate worse because they are new to the country and possibly unaware of the market forces etc. And they don’t have the unemployment benefits to fall back to - even though they pay for it the same as everyone.
Oh, they also pay Social Security. And then leave. Just so we can enjoy it.
> 1–2 weeks’ pay per semester of tenure, based on level; six months of fully covered COBRA (remaining 12 months paid by you) and two vesting events in February and May.
> L65-L67 get 4w of pay per year of service, while L64 and below get 2w per year. I’ve been with MS for 10 years, so I qualify for the max payout of 39w.
> Eligibility this time is up to L70, not sure what the package is for L68-70.
Pretty big, but remember that offering a buyout to 1/4 of their employees doesn't mean they're looking to get rid of that many! Not everyone's going to take the buyout, and they're not expecting them to. Their target is likely much lower.
Wow. This is insane news. To think you suddenly can get by with up to 25% fewer people is truly a sign of what is to come. They probably assume much fewer will accept, but still. They probably think 10-20% will actually accept. But they're confident that they can make due with suddenly quite a bit fewer people.
I recently took a contract with big tech after working with startups for about a year ( I was at this big corp a year ago)
Maybe it’s the small sample size, but from what I’ve seen, the thing hurting velocity more than anything is the fact that teams have too many “cooks”.
The way work is delegated is a bit broken when in reality the engineer who knows the code base or problem best should scope the work and just delegate it to their agents.
"1/4 of workforce was offered buyouts" does not mean all 60000 will accept them. "Results may vary", you know.
I saw it happening in a funny way not long time ago - company offered buyouts, but got insanely surprised when high percentage of people actually accepted it. Management thought acceptance rate would be much, much lower, but when numbers started to pour in on a 2nd day, oh man... Panic spread very quickly because people were accepting packages in fear of layoffs without such package, so management said if any layoffs will happen in 3 years period after this, same package will be offered no question asked. Cooled things a bit, but what a mess...
>so management said if any layoffs will happen in 3 years period after this, same package will be offered no question asked. Cooled things a bit, but what a mess...
Unless those funds were placed in an escrow account, I would have assumed that claim held no water.
Also just from raw corporate penny pinching. Why would they make payouts like that if they're not forced to, yes there's reputational risks of making that promise and then not following through with it but faced with a choice between that and a few lawsuits (with the usual corporate advantages of arbitration clauses and vastly more resources they're likely to win too).
In practice, the money you save long-term by reducing headcount is one or two orders of magnitude larger than the money you pay out in severance. Losing your reputation and a lot of legal fees over (basically) pennies tends not to be sound business.
I'm not sure the rep damage actually spreads that far and given a hard enough push the business will be more than willing to spend a little bit of reputation for survival.
Litigation is a rich man's game. Companies almost always have more resources to dedicate to litigation than individual employees, especially if those individual employees have been laid off and are now without an income.
The company knows this, the employees know this, the company knows the employees know this, and vice-versa.
A promise like that just isn't binding, things can change in 2 years, the managers themselves may have moved and been replaced with different people. A bird in the hand is worth many birds three years from now.
It was more than 3 years ago, but as far as I know, they did honor the agreement. Some people took early retirement packages closer to the end of that three-year period and they got the same deal.
If this claim was in writing then it's legally binding in most U.S. states. Technically it's legally binding even if it's not written but in those cases it's harder to prove.
Why not? People believe the FDIC has enough money to prevent any bank runs from wiping and cash on hand. Very few check the tape, especially if they're in the middle of a fear or panic reaction and an authority claims its fine.
30% was the quoted number for the acceptance rate of the earlier VRP, which was mostly long tenured employees who were at retirement age, or close to it. I would be surprised if this gets a significant acceptance from the younger employees. OTOH, older employees who didn't accept the earlier VRP and were regretting that decision may jump at this offer.
Then again, if/when they do lay off so many employees, then Microsoft is putting themselves in the position that eventually they will "have no choice" but to depend more and more on agents to do as much of the work as possible...which i predict means that their products will dip in quality even further, at least until models, agents, etc. can markedly improve...so, a continuation or worsening of the quality. The future looks bleak in a few different ways; oof!
One of my last productive acts when I was at microsoft was to get a two-line change committed in windows to a tree outside my org. It took two full months just to propagate the change up the very fragile and fractured tree of repos from my team's to WINMAIN and from WINMAIN back down to the owning team's org, and my efforts were required every step of the way. It was truly soul-crushing.
Edit: this was in the windows vista days and I hope/expect they have overhauled that entire process in a major way, because things were at a near standstill.
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 241 ms ] threadVoluntary packages tend to be accepted by the strongest employees
It’s a shitty deal for companies but shareholders love cost cutting
They could have done 10% a year for the next 2-3 years, but the immediate financial gratification wouldn’t be satisfied
Copilot going to pick up the slack of 25% of the workforce?
Spreading it out means employees spend some of their time with an ear to the ground rather than working, and teams have to deal with multiple restructurings, neither of which are good for well-being nor productivity.
And the internal memo currently circulating actually does not mention that number so I'd be curious where it came from.
Given all insane bets made by previously (somewhat) reasonable and successful business owners, I wonder how much of a joke it really is...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-26/microsoft...
Sales alone is some 25 % of Microsoft expenditures, so are these 60k about 50 % of what's left?
They make the offer to 60,000 (typically, an entire department gets this offer, including people they want to keep). Some X,000 will take the offer. If Y,000 > X,000, they they lay off the difference.
I'm still not sure what the advantage to the company of an offer like this is versus layoffs where management gets to choose who leaves, unless they feel the "loyalty test" of deciding to stay is worth more than their own evaluation of employee performance.
1. Some C-suite asshole wants headcount in your division reduced by, say, 5% next year.
2. You could do random, or targeted layoffs to hit that 5%, but this ruins morale for everyone who survives.
3. ...Or, you could make this offer, let people leave on their own, don't do any backfill, and between the two, you might hit that 5% reduction, and not have to do layoffs. (Or do very small layoffs.)
That's not an outcome they'd like, but it's an outcome they have to accept, in order to not piss off everyone else.
1. For anyone they want to keep who takes them up on the offer, they always have a chance to try to convince those people to not take the buyout offer.
2. If you make the buyout offer conditional to particular individuals, it will sow resentment and division.
It's generally better for the employees and the employer to do this kind of blanket buyout. If they voluntarily hit the reduction targets, nobody needs to be laid off. If they don't, the layoffs will be there, but smaller. If the 'wrong' people want the buyout, there's still a chance to convince them to stay. If they don't want to stay after the convincing, it's probably best for them to go on their way.
> The Redmond, Washington-based company is expecting a lower proportion to accept the voluntary exit offer because the employees included in the offer are younger and no additional incentive is given beyond standard severance for their length of service, the person familiar said. Typical take-up levels for buyouts in tech are between 3 per cent and 5 per cent, they added.
https://www.ft.com/content/2ef29406-f2f8-413f-81f6-5ae098c97...
I was actually thrilled with my cola that year along with the required vacation time.
Honestly it was a very weird time. Less than a year prior I had worked in a real estate office, and there was a lot of scary stuff already starting to happen.
Reasons to accept. Reasons to decline, but that isn't one of them.
Now, even if the company is crushing it, they'll still see employees more as a cost center instead of a revenue generator.
The amount of capex flying around requires raising funds, there have been dozens of stories recently about investors demanding higher rates for AI bonds. MSFT et al need to get their balance sheets in order to get good rates. Also, everyone is waiting for the bubble to burst, getting the house in order ahead of it is very prudent.
If you still need a job, I don't see it as being very attractive in this environment, unless you're quite senior with very marketable skills.
It's fine for them to get rid of excess weight. My guess is they could probably cut a lot more if they wanted.
I think we should buy people out with reasonable comp and let them live the rest of their life doing something that brings them joy and happiness, even if that's volunteering in what they used to get paid for. But I'm not a policymaker.
A whole lot more of us are going to get involuntarily put out to pasture through no fault of our own.
'I've applied for 300 jobs. My 25 years' experience is worthless' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50182823 - October 2026 (111 comments)
Our human brains unsurprisingly still default to that, and it is quite understandable imo.
reality - expectations - uncertainy = happiness/saddness
It might just be a job but someone living happy in good conditions that feels like the rug might get pulled under them for something they cannot control for is a lot more unerving even if your material conditions work out just fine in the end.
Also I think your being a little atomizing in the impact here. 1 Person losing a job is their problem, I agree. 60 thousand people losing there job is a problem for the government and society. 60K people is a lot and it has a ton of consquences. This is also leading into the prospects of we have these massively profitable corportations who are on the cusp of firing large % of high income people. Whats the tax implication of losing 60K engineering staff level saleries. Its atleast in the billions which is small in the total Federal revenue but if this is a sign of whats to come we have problems. Maybe those people go to different employment but change will effect a lot of local economies.
Granted I know you are really talking about the local emotional effect but the granular net effect is worth the conversation too.
In the US, currently, ~4M Boomers retire a year, ~11k/day, ~2M people 55+ die every year, about half of which are in the labor force; that means ~13k-14k workers leave the labor force every day in the US, ~400k/month. 60k workers leaving Microsoft is a drop in the bucket, relatively speaking. But of course, they should still get as much support as possible via the packages they accept, and getting to retirement (Social Security and Medicare benefits) as pain free and least uncertainty as possible.
> Granted I know you are really talking about the local emotional effect but the granular net effect is worth the conversation too.
I vote for and support Democratic Socialist candidates, who would implement and maintain more humane and pro worker economic systems, I'm doing my part at system levels. But systems will take decades to change. It took decades to get here from Ronald Reagan and his policies.
Certainly, people should never be in economic peril, but they also shouldn't tie their identity to their job, or think their job matters. The evidence is robust that the job does not matter.
(and if you think there is a problem with corporate earnings vs what workers take home, again, that is a political and labor organizing problem to solve for)
US Wages Share of GDI at 75 Year Low - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50238884 - October 2026
Many Americans Are Struggling to Afford Basic Necessities - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50197020 - October 2026
A majority of Americans have low-quality jobs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50195502 - October 2026
Sure, from a raw numbers perspective it's a drop in the bucket. But not all numbers are created equal. How does the pay of these employees from Microsoft compare? You mention those of the baby boomer generation, but are all employees who may be leaving Microsoft of the same age range? What about their skillsets and the investments they and we as society of spent in their education? Those other factors matter quite a bit, so you can't just do a simple 1-1 analysis of "people".
> Certainly, people should never be in economic peril, but they also shouldn't tie their identity to their job, or think their job matters. The evidence is robust that the job does not matter.
Why? Which evidence? I think more people could have more meaning if they were self-employed, were craftsmen or artisans, and such, but this nihilistic viewpoint (which is a hallmark of anti-social/authoritarian ideologies like DSA and others) not only doesn't reflect reality but seeks to belittle those who do in fact find meaning and joy in their work. I for one like my job and have liked most of the jobs I've had. Just because an organization no longer needs you, or you no longer need it, doesn't mean that the job all of a sudden "doesn't matter".
If people don't tie their identity to the thing they spend the most time doing what will they tie it to? Should a police officer or teacher not think of themselves through the lens of their chosen profession? When you ask a professor at your university do you want to work with one who doesn't tie themselves to their work or their research? Would you want to buy produce from a farmer who sort of doesn't care about the quality of the food they grow? Do you want to fly on an airplane built by people who think their job doesn't matter?
I don't really think DSA had much that would help the economy beside the basic mainstream democrat tastes. Democrats generally speaking want less monopolies, better healthcare insurance (mostly a public option) and reasonable taxation but the DSA takes things to 11 with just politically unviable rhetoric in my opinion. But most of all, I think the ideas from the DSA that work doesn't matter as long as people are taken care is likely to cost a lot people.
The Mechanic takes pride that he can fix stuff. The engineer takes pride that they can design a system. Doctors take pride that they are the reason people don't die. If you take away pride you harm a lot of people this is arguable what got the democrats (republicans voted for this too) where they are today in that they embraced Free Trade regardless of the cost. It created a rust belt that is brain washed into blaming Democrats for 100% of the harm. Fox news helps in accomplishing that that too but I think a lot of the DSA is steeped in that MAGA like style of never engage in what harms the ideology thinking and that spooks me away from that group agressively.
There are labor shortages throughout the developed world, due to structural demographics. This will not change in our lifetime due to global demographic trajectories. This will push wages up. This is good. Wages paid are shareholder returns not paid.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49713865 (citations)
The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival - https://www.suerf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/f_fa99ccdbe... - SUERF Policy Note, Issue No 197, October 2020
We agree to disagree on DSA policies. I want the Scandinavian model to protect people. IDGAF about profits, people first, full stop. Their support is very high amongst the under 35, and 2M 55+ voters age out every year. Progress is a function of time and electorate turnover. Old people with old ideas die out, and are replaced by young people with different ideas.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49258731 (citations)
Can you stop big companies from making these cuts? No, at least not without unions and laws to make it harder. So, in the short term, help these people land softly and in the long term, build better systems so that people who want to contribute have some place to. That’s it’s.
(globalization is unlikely to repeat, for various reasons)
If Microsoft is 40% based in the US the US probably would see 20K people in high salery positions get cut if its somewhat evenly leveled. They are still okay with reducing 1/4 people (they are offering a buyout so I am holding off on the F bomb).
The invest into AI is something like $6T if it hasn't produced $6T in value it better produce it in cuts. If you expect its just going to Microsoft laying off great the government is fine but if other companies in the next months cut high paid position it hits the country in non trivial ways. But You are correct its not just going to effect the US it and that dampens the magntitude but its still a massive reduction of force for a major company
Muh job creators! You can't tax your way to growth!
Well actually, they are now job destroyers. Tax the fuckers.
I think theres just MUCH more depression over the much more visible reality that your upper managers don't care about you or the work you put out. Especially now with AI companies pitching them a salivating dream of doing the work of 100 with 10.
Finance. Everything is a number to be optimized that must constantly grow. The US abandoned antitrust, worker protections, social safety nets, and more in the name of greed.
For workers to care you need to treat them as humans. People care about a team and a family that care about them back.
The mythical story of the person who started in the mailroom and worked their way up is gone. The mailroom, secretary, custodian, and as many roles as possible have been replaced with contractors without benefits or any future in the building they currently work in who will facelessly cycle out in a few months for another contractor.
Employees have been abused too much to believe the lies. If I work twice as hard, my reward is a sub-inflation raise and no realistic hope of promotion. Feedback employees give is ignored, so there's no motivation to push to improve things. The management class has a desperate dream of all people being fungible so they can throw them out and get cheaper ones, and fungible is what you get - if you want a generic interchangeable cog, that's what you get, but don't complain about how the cog doesn't "care enough".
Even in bakery, coffee shop, repair, deliveries.. you feel happy about your simple skills, happy to serve people that need a little bit of what you do, even serving coffee quick and clean.. in a team of people who know how to organize themselves. It can be exhausting, limited.. but it felt better than digital gray fog we're going in (graeber would say bullshit jobs).
And previous generation had even a different culture, my mother keeps telling me how warm and fun it was to work in the 70s. No easy job, 1000~ customer restaurants, but the way people approached jobs, belonging, connection.. was different. I witnessed the cold privatization of her building around 2000s, it became more a factory than a place to drink coffee and eat, everything was stiffer and came from high above management who didn't work with employees.
The internet and free information showed them up for what they really were: biased cavemen like everyone else, and the aura vanished.
And that is going to have predictable consequences like increases in suicides, substance abuse, etc.
A job might "just be a job" but I'm growing tired of this trend online of treating work like it isn't important for most people's sense of worth, place in society, and overall mental health.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/03/31/deathbed-wish/
"Your sense of worth should not be tied up in your job" only does so much when the average person's reality is that his or her job is the means by which they survive/thrive economically, a primary factor in whether or not they attract a partner and reproduce, etc.
Now, go code something nice.
Another problem is those career arcs are so long, where in something like tech or consulting, if you stick with it for 5-8 years you historically have a lot of seniority over new hires.
At this point I can’t afford to apply to tech jobs anymore. They require you to be available for an hour randomly across multiple days and have shit like the ceo “needing” to meet you and then rescheduling last second because something more important than you came up.
All the jobs available to someone changing career right now give you maybe a days head up on your schedule and a 30 minute lunch if your lucky.
The interview process for tech has become a class barrier in of itself
I think your dad did the right thing.
No, he didn't get the big dollar signs. But he did get a decade worth of health insurance, employment, and more security for his family than he would have had going out looking for a job on his own.
There are no good choices in that situation. But I don't think he made a wrong one.
Very sorry. Dignity is important and often overlooked.
Honestly, if work was to come at me with a buy-out offer, and I was in a position to be able to afford to not work for a few years, I'd probably accept. Maybe go find some non-tech work for a little bit to stretch the dollars and ensure I have health insurance.
We're in such a bubble at the moment, things are going to get really rough.
The other thing to consider is if you'll want to keep working at the company after so many people have left due to the buyout and the layoff. If not, taking the buyout and looking for a new job is likely to be better for you than not taking the buyout, not getting laid off, and looking for a new job once you conclude you don't like the new environment. For one thing, you'll probably have buyout compensation and new job compensation at the same time; for another, it may be easier to find a new job if you're in the market before the layoffs increase the hiring pool.
tl:dr One round of layoffs isn't bad if you're staying, but subsequent rounds can make you miserable.
also means they can dodge any NDA / wrongful termination / bad behavior issues on the way out. sign the doc and play nice and get $$$.
keep in mind the US doesn't have great protections in that regard, so "severance" may be them allowing you to collect the last of your crap on the way out and paying you through the end of the week.
I know its very similar to the equivalent amount of cash but it feels a lot different. I feel like half my desire to work is connected to healthcare for the family.
I'm realizing I'm a little bit too passionate about this lol but I would love to hear if you have a specific plan or goal in mind so I can copy it. For me BaristaFIRE would be ideal, but with so many friends going through the layoff/unemployment cycle and hearing their experiences I've concluded it's much more pragmatic to stay in tech.
If so many of your friends are becoming unemployed, isn't this a sign of things to come? If people keep getting laid off in tech, what is the motivation to stay there if you might be next?
Like you, I'm confused by the dreams people post about working low-paid jobs if they're laid off. If the job market is flooded with tech workers, all these jobs will become even more competitive than before, and wages will fall. If you think your own career in tech is actually in danger (as in, you don't think you have any skills that couldn't be fully automated in the near future), I think the best option is getting some different education to put some barrier of certification between yourself and the rest of the desperate job market. But it should be something that's highly employable and difficult to automate, which is a scope that keeps narrowing.
My plan when I return is to get my EMT and moonlight as an ER tech while doing prerequisites for PA school or maybe medical physics.
Caveat: I'm not living in a typical region of the country, I'm in Wānaka, which is easier to find a job in but also more expensive than most of the country.
Ah... it's working holiday visa, I never qualify for this bullshit.
/rant
son let me tell you about health care coverage at non-FAANG companies... it ain't great.
and the market is brutal out there. you're gonna have to try hard to get a Home Depot job
Things are definitely weird because the current unemployment rate isn't far off 50 year lows: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE
Union job will get you good health insurance.
Software probably isn’t that, but if you need health insurance more than cash, be strategic.
If you’re getting screwed on the compensation and it’s important enough to you, think outside the box about the area you work in.
> you're gonna have to try hard to get a Home Depot job
Only the most desperate SWE/HN poster is looking for hourly jobs at Home Depot. I think this is bogus.
The fact people have to find a job not for money but for health insurance is about as dystopian as I can imagine. Toil just to not get sick and go broke, not because you need the money. What a sad world we built for ourselves.
Sad country, just US. Rest of the western world works much better. But this is what US population wants, more direct money at all costs and praying all the time no nasty health surprise is around the corner. Otherwise you are a commie or worse. Higher education is exactly the same.
Given overall health of US population thats not a good bet and it only gets worse with age.
There’s very little I can see truly breaking American society but I think the stark stupidity of health care here is up on the top.
Shocks do come, nothing is static. One may end up bankrupt earlier than correction happens though. Vote with your feet if you want change earlier than it coming from the top.
I haven't had any coverage in 3 years. It's not the end of the world. People who lose their shit over weird tail risks are missing out on the competitive advantage. You can compensate for the expensive doctors and prescription meds with more exercise and cleaner diets.
I always looked at employer sponsored health care as a sort of trap. I never got involved in it. Every insurance premium I would have paid has gone to a retirement, investment or savings account instead. One big open runway is a lot more useful than a bunch of smaller ones with weird constraints. The idea of a health savings account amuses me.
How about the last several times all of big tech was laying off tons of people at the same time?
I'm not going to disagree with "this time it's different", but I've seen this fear several times before. This time it's AI that's going to take our jobs, and maybe that will happen, but it's not the first threat.
Back then, you might think the market was a bit cooler, but talented engineers were still in massive demand. Growth in tech was stalling but a massive reduction in demand was very unlikely
This time there's a real chance that in 10 years we have 50% or less the number of software engineers today, if the job title still even exists as we know it
If you were lucky, you got laid off with a severance. If you weren't, you showed up to work one day and the doors were locked with no notice.
And we're still technically in the boom part of the cycle. I wonder how bad it will be after the actual crash.
Considering that the offer seems to be familiar and not more lucrative than ordinary separation, I would estimate the target is a 20000 headcount rapid reduction by December. If that's not accomplished this time then I would expect further action until that short-term target is met as early in 2027 as possible. Probably by offering to many who were not included this time.
This is actually pretty drastic, enough to be considered overkill adequate enough to weather economic downturns extending for quite some time, it would be much more foolish to err on the side of inadequate.
After 20000 is hit, I would expect no further cutbacks for well more than a year unless things turn miserably worse faster and steeper than their top people could imagine based on what they know now.
My friend's company offered a voluntary severance package to a bunch of employees. She was talking to one of her employees and she knew that he was going to get laid off if he didn't take the package but was unable to advise him. I think the voluntary severance was 2 years medical, 2 years of vesting, many months of pay, etc. But he decided not to take the offer and was laid off for a much worse package a few months later.
ALWAYS TAKE THE VOLUNTARY SEVERANCE.
Ignoring specifics, the corp offers a package because they want you to take it. That means that you taking it is in their best interest.
It might also be in your own best interest, but it might also not be. That's something that needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis
Also if you're a manager you should be able to make it pretty clear.
But if they have half a clue they'll still be able to figure out which way the wind is blowing.
Source: a lowly line manager who has seen and survived a number of these.
I had doubts too, but it is in ALL CAPS so it must be true?
Yes, of course it means layoffs are coming. This isn't a conspiracy. The whole point of these packages is "We want people to leave. The more people who take the package, the fewer the number that is laid off."
If the package is going to only a small percentage of the company, then yes, it's a sign they'll get rid of you. When it's offered to such a large number, then it's just a lottery to see who'll lose their jobs. Like all lotteries, the chances of you being impacted are low (e.g. 10% was the max in my case).
The company doesn’t necessarily want everyone to take the package, and they’re inevitably going to price the separation benefits such that some employees would end up better off taking it and others would end up better off not taking it.
Not everyone has options and unemployment can be the difference between being on the street or eating ramen.
And I’m not saying that in a grumpy way. Yes we do have much higher salaries, and because of that it’s reasonable that it’s on us to save up for this type of rainy day, in accordance with our own personal risk assessment.
It’s honestly something I spent 15 years rarely thinking about, because while I’ve seen many RIFs, I was never worried since getting a new job was as easy as just responding to a few of the messages that constantly came in via LinkedIn or email. No longer.
The buyout offer certainly will exceed the unemployment payout for most.
Generally, in the US, unemployment lasts a few months tops. Regardless of how long you worked, or how long you will be without work.
It wasn't a 'instead of layoffs' it was 'ok if you're burned out, here's your exit'.
Most of the time, though, you're right. Take it.
If they need your skills after restructuring, you will be offered your old job back and get to pocket the buyout money.
If they don't need your skills, you're going to get fired anyway.
At least that's how any rational company would handle it. Employees are supposedly hired because they contribute to the company, not to fill seats.
It's very common in these situations to target every org in the company with a goal of X% reduction. If a small fraction of these teams now need extra headcount, easy enough to allow those teams to hire. Usually you don't keep the severance if you return in under X days.
I've personally been laid off, only for the post-re-org team to hire several people, including asking to rehire me. It's rare, and those affected should probably plan to find new jobs, but it happens.
I've never worked at a rational company. I'm not sure that's a thing.
Exactly as you place it, the way they found out to push for buyouts was to terminate existing positions.
Everyone was forced to decide between taking the buyout, or apply to internal positions instead, naturally the later was much more complicated than just taking the money.
That's generally not legal in the U.S. or most of the EU. The company would have to establish a very significant paper trail to establish that these individual "performance-based" layoffs were not part of a layoff subject to WARN regulations (or their European equivalents which are even stricter). The hurdle is so large that no company has successfully pulled off such a feat, and many of the companies that tried ended up paying significantly more in penalties to their local Depts of Labor than they would have saved with this stunt.
(Not to mention that companies have spent decades perfecting the "layoffs are coming in a quarter or two, send out performance reviews now and encourage managers to be extra 'honest' and nitpick everything so that we have a written record just in case we need to fire people for performance to make the layoff seem smaller" dance, including Stack Ranking being built to be that smoke 100% of the year, every year. Still technically illegal, but if the quiet parts aren't said out loud who are you going to believe, the months ahead of time paperwork in performance reviews or that executives decided they needed harsh performance reviews months in advance on a golf course somewhere? It's not a conspiracy when it's so easy to pull off.)
Mass terminations without timely notice, or pay in lieu of notice, are not. Disguising a mass termination as a collection of "performance" based individual terminations is a method that many companies have tried and failed, because...get this...WARN regulations in the US and EU don't care about the reasons for termination unless it's a "for cause" termination and you absolutely need to document the cause for those.
I don't know if it has to do with my particular tech background, the fact that I live in Austin and everyone and all the remote jobs are gone, but it used to be pretty good out there, and in the last year it seems like there's almost nothing at all.
It's probably taking advantage of economic arbitrage, plus healthy beliefs in what AI can maintain.
The interesting thing will be to see what new things companies who do this can achieve.
The question above whether to take it now or try to delay taking a package is an interesting thought.
25% offers != 25% layoffs
After offers, they could enforce any percentage of layoffs up to 25%, no?
Offers often come before layoffs, no?
This is just an optics-friendly way to soften the blow of 25% layoffs.
Layoffs absolutely suck, and there is likely more pain on the way, but if the alternatives are voluntary buyouts + layoffs vs plain layoffs, the first is much better.
https://www.geekwire.com/2026/microsoft-makes-new-voluntary-...
The "internal" memo: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-is-offering-buyout...
In this job market, that may not be enough time to feel comfortable and safe taking the offer (if you're a super-employable hotshot with offers awaiting in your LinkedIn, you're probably not the likely target for the offer)
Could still be much better than a sudden layoff though.
but if I was that employable, and offered that severance, I'd not give it one second's thought
and that's the problem, these severance packages are more often taken by the best people in the company
Why do recruiters keep contacting me even though I’m retired?
Maybe your retired flag hasn't propagated the system yet?
Maybe they're just casting a really large net?
If your comp package has a non-disclosure clause it's illegal. You cannot be asked not to discuss salary in the US.
> People don't want to tip off
That's why it's illegal to be prevented from discussing salary. Discuss your coworkers - you might be the one being underpaid.
Fun times =3
You can sign broken contract freely - it's unenforceable, so you can sign whatever paper HR hands to you, and only when you're retaliated against do you need to care. Which coincidentally is when you stop needing to be cooperative anyways.
Don't "YMMV" your way out of laws that protect you.
We have this thing called freedom of speech that the courts take pretty seriously (usually).
The whole don't discuss how much you get paid, because its poor etiquette is an anti-worker old wives tale created by HR people last century. Its a complete myth, but most jobs Ive worked at there's always someone who is extermely afraid to discuss the topic out of fear of breaking a non-existent rule. The psyops worked.
ymmv, as living in an ivory tower means I may be unaware of current US rules.
>We have this thing called freedom of speech
That may be an old wives tale, as corporate money is defined as speech now. =3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
I was making over market rate on H1B. The petition process forces the employer to pay market rate or above.
Also the transfer petition is very easy and it usually takes 2-4 weeks. You can argue that changing jobs is higher friction for H1B workers, but if you are offered more salary elsewhere but decide to stay, well, that’s kind of on you, not the H1B process.
Perhaps the people I knew were just unlucky =3
That statement is fake news. And not sure why they have to lie if all this data already backs up their claim. Oh wait, if it wasn’t for this BS claim we would question the market forces and not buy their BS…
I changed my job 3 times in 2 years on an H1B. Standard paperwork. In fact, the last one was during the company I worked for was being acquired so I had 2 petitions at the same time. Didn’t lift a finger for it. Well, other than signing the papers sent over to me.
I can get behind the claim that H1B workers negotiate worse because they are new to the country and possibly unaware of the market forces etc. And they don’t have the unemployment benefits to fall back to - even though they pay for it the same as everyone.
Oh, they also pay Social Security. And then leave. Just so we can enjoy it.
> 1–2 weeks’ pay per semester of tenure, based on level; six months of fully covered COBRA (remaining 12 months paid by you) and two vesting events in February and May.
> L65-L67 get 4w of pay per year of service, while L64 and below get 2w per year. I’ve been with MS for 10 years, so I qualify for the max payout of 39w.
> Eligibility this time is up to L70, not sure what the package is for L68-70.
People are playing stock valuation games these days, as they don't want the laggard label. =3
We could, but we would need access to Larry Ellison and a scale.
Not necessarily the reasoning. It might also be that they think their slice of the pie is about to become much smaller, for example.
Would love to have some insider knowledge on this decision.
Imagine it's more like a net 10% will leave, which is in line with many layoffs (acknowledging Microsoft's size makes this a large number)
Maybe it’s the small sample size, but from what I’ve seen, the thing hurting velocity more than anything is the fact that teams have too many “cooks”.
The way work is delegated is a bit broken when in reality the engineer who knows the code base or problem best should scope the work and just delegate it to their agents.
I can’t image how things look on the BI side.
I saw it happening in a funny way not long time ago - company offered buyouts, but got insanely surprised when high percentage of people actually accepted it. Management thought acceptance rate would be much, much lower, but when numbers started to pour in on a 2nd day, oh man... Panic spread very quickly because people were accepting packages in fear of layoffs without such package, so management said if any layoffs will happen in 3 years period after this, same package will be offered no question asked. Cooled things a bit, but what a mess...
Unless those funds were placed in an escrow account, I would have assumed that claim held no water.
And?
Litigation is a rich man's game. Companies almost always have more resources to dedicate to litigation than individual employees, especially if those individual employees have been laid off and are now without an income.
The company knows this, the employees know this, the company knows the employees know this, and vice-versa.
Okay, so how many nights until the blue-eyed employees all leave the company? :p
You can't say, "Well, we hired a new CEO, so all those old agreements are null and void."
And people believed them?!
Probably because they could sue them for not keeping their word.
Even basic things like fixing the pothole doesn't get done because, well, permits.
Edit: this was in the windows vista days and I hope/expect they have overhauled that entire process in a major way, because things were at a near standstill.