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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

> If you thought you had to work more after the first round of layoffs, boy howdy; after round two, you might as well park your cot in the office. Worse, in round 2 and 3 the severance packages get smaller and smaller.

Because the people who are left are stupider and more desperate for a job.

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>Because the people who are left are stupider and more desperate for a job.

No, it's because by round two and three the company doesn't have as much money and isn't as concerned by the bad press that comes from layoffs without severance. You could say that people /stay/ because they are desperate for a job.

Re-read the sentence you quoted.

I can't bear to vote you down Luke, but you just said the exact same thing as the parent.

My reading of rayiner's comment was that the severance packages were small because the employees were desperate and stupid.

I'm suggesting that the size of the severance package is divorced from the quality of employee. The severance package has to do with how much money the company has and how concerned it is with publicity.

Yeah, I read your post wrong. I read it as the size of the incentives to stay, not the severance.

I think you skipped the word 'are', in the phrase 'people who are left'.

Regardless, you both appear to agree that the layoffs who pass on the earlier, more attractive offers are likely to get the least attractive severance packages.

Edit: Not it appears that Rayiner agrees that he's wrong, which makes me wrong by proxy, which is confusing, since I can't find where you two are in any disagreement.

Just pretend I'm not here, I guess.

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