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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Like you point out in your second paragraph, some percentage of employees are automatically going to start looking for a new job and treat their 80% salary as a severance package. Being in a competitive job market, this is going to be pretty much every above-average employee at your company. With layoffs the company gets to choose who gets impacted, and the process is immediate rather than drawn-out.

The reality is that too many VC funded companies hire too eagerly and can operate perfectly fine (in some cases better) with a smaller, more focused workforce.

There is no coming back from a major across-the-board paycut, which is why no company chooses that option.

BTW your question is answered in the last paragraph of the article.

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> Being in a competitive job market

Are we in a competitive job market still? For whom?

I thought the same thing. If I'm running one of the only companies making layoffs the advice about paycuts rings true, but what about the situation we find ourselves in now where almost every company in the whole UK economy, and many beyond that, are in the same boat?

Of course, this piece has been written to provide advice in the face of the current situation, so I'm not simply dismissing it: just asking the question.

For clarity, my question was a response to the last part of the article that talks about this topic.

I think you’re right that layoffs allow you to take a more targeted approach and retain top talent to the extent that it’s possible. However, really in-demand employees aren’t generally going to want to work at a financially unstable or insecure company, and layoffs would probably be a sign for them to start looking even if they weren’t impacted.

In 2011, every developer where I was working knew that the company was on its last legs. Management was completely honest with us. We stuck around any way because we enjoyed what we were doing and knew that we would be able to get a job quickly. We were right, from looking at LinkedIn everyone had another job in less than a month.

The people that were left survived three rounds of layoffs.

I know this time it’s different than 2008-2011. But no job is stable. The only hope you have is to keep your skillset in line with the market and to have a strong network.

Obviously things are different now. But in a good job market where layoffs are due to the company's underperformance, people spared from the layoff are going to start looking anyway. Lest they're laid off in the (nearly) inevitable next round.

> There is no coming back from a major across-the-board paycut

What do you mean?

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