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Comment by sct202 | Hacker News Reader

I read on the Layoff they had about 11.4k applicants, and 90% of them were accepted. Looks like the first wave is out starting Dec 28th.

With such a large cut it would be weird to be rejected, I would feel an awkward mix of jealousy and loss to go back to work afterwards.

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With those kind of hiring numbers and lay offs, it seems to me that they had senior employees train younger, less expensive (in salary and medical cost) replacements and then lay off the older, more expensive workers. Less vacation time, less pay, less family headache, less everything. It's a win/win for Verizon. It's been done time and time again. I'm not sure why everyone's arguing Repubs and Dems above, other than they just like to do it =/. They do this stuff in blue and red states. They do it here in WA, just like they did it in NC when I lived there, too. It sucked every time they did it and every where they did it.

Oracle does this almost 3x per year.

It took senior people making 90-120 base and laid them off to employ (me and others) at 47-60k base salary in Massachusetts.

Then after 3 years, they laid us college kids off to employ even lower paid fresh graduates in Austin and San Antonio, because Texas cut them an even better deal than MA did I believe.

When British Telecom did this one of the top complaints to the union was "they wont let me go".

Anecdotally for key skills "radio planners" competitors where known to ask what your redundancy payment would be and offer a golden hello to match an dwe are talking > £100,000 15 years ago

As someone who volunteered and wasn’t cut... it’s a mighty weird rejection.

Sounds to me like the rejection is a tacit admission by the company that you're too valuable to lose.

That would be a fantastic way to ask for a raise.

No, they would just tell you that you're lucky to still have a job. Even if they gave you a raise, you just increase your chances of being a layoff target since you cost the company more now. If you are saved from a massive layoff like that, you seriously need to find something new because you are next on the chopping block no matter what.

I don't understand how a company can think like this with unemployment as low as it is. They don't have much room to be calling labor's bluffs.

Healthcare + low skilled, low wage jobs (EMS, manufacturing, parcel delivery, warehouse work) are taking a lot of slack out of the employment market

Check out where job gains in the US were in November: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Healthcare added +32k jobs, the majority of which were ambulance drivers/EMS jobs

Manufacturing added +27k jobs, mainly in chemicals and heavy metals

Transportation and warehousing added + 25k jobs, mainly in package delivery and warehouse work

Business services added +32k jobs

All other sectors remained largely unchanged

I don't think a 50YO radio engineer at Verizon is going to be happy retraining to be an EMS or package delivery courier. Labor, especially older and higher paid (non management) positions, is not in the best position right now despite the record low unemployment rate

> Even if they gave you a raise, you just increase your chances of being a layoff target

But if you applied for a layoff and didn't get it, isn't that exactly what you want? And in the meantime you get to make more. It's a win-win!

It actually isn't. Often the voluntary separation offers the most severance or is close to it. Everyone left now has a ton more work to do while being paid the same and knowing that you won't be getting a raise or bonus. Everyone is waiting for the next round of layoffs. You also need to be careful that you don't make a mistake that would allow the company to fire you without offering a severance (I know one person who grabbed something from a late-night cafeteria and forgot to pay for it and was promptly fired the next day).

Amen, and worth reiterating.

From what I've heard from amigos working for big ISPs, you can often get 3-6 months of salary, and if you have decent skills (i.e. you've got job options) then it's often a paid vacation while you shop around for other gigs.

Meanwhile if you stay you know there is great acrimony ahead, big changes, lots of clueless newbies coming in, and potentially a crazy-high workload until the dust finally settles.

Why stick around when you can chill for a month, burn one-hitters until your homie at CenturyLink hooks it up, and bone up on certs or skills.

Best to get off of a sinking ship early, since that's when the biggest lifeboats are available.

The people who are left have to do more work and are less likely to get nice severance packages during the next round.

My thoughts exactly.

Not really, they might just say no. If you really want a raise you need a competing offer or a clear market value indicator.

Wouldn't it be a compliment of sorts to be determined too valuable to be let go?

Depends on the terms I know a lot in the UK who did this got a massive taxfree redundancy payment - then went to work for a competitor or went freelance my old boss went back to fixing COBOL

I've been there, it's not really a good feeling since the remaining pressure can be burdensome depending on how much your company cuts.

"You're too valuable to let go! Best yet is you don't have all those pesky coworkers!"

Whatever leftover slop the company feeds you from the remains of your coworkers won't have that satisfying flavor.

What I have realized is that in such companies your importance to a company is only as much as the next project. When project agendas changes, next time might be your turn. So take it as a warning to find a better place soon as possible.

An acquantance was offered this. he was offered 2 years salery upfront. after the end date, it reverts back to 1 year salary.

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