Not what happened with some of the recent layoffs. Some big tech companies generate huge revenues, laid off 5-10% of people (sometimes with false pretext of performance), and do keep hiring at the same time or soon after. This happens not to reduce cost but to stress out remaining employees.
In my team, two people who got laid off as "low performers" weren't. One was very good but had a bad luck with a very bad project / manager the previous half. The other picked the wrong topic to work on and they weren't well rewarded.
The low performers are usually managed out anyway. The last lay off phase was quite arbitrary.
Also note that high performers often do get promoted, and may become low performers at the next level.
> The low performers are usually managed out anyway.
That may be your experience, and kudos to companies that do this, but particularly in tech I've seen that not be the norm. Egregiously low performers are managed out, but performers who are basically just "low mediocre" can hang on for a long, long time in my experience, and tech companies often use layoffs as an opportunity to get rid of them. To be clear, not everyone who is let go in a layoff is a low performer (a lot of time it's just the luck of whatever business unit you're working in), but companies certainly take advantage of layoffs to get rid of low performers without needing reams and reams of documentation.
If there's an interview for a position and the candidate is 30 minutes late or no shows, maybe there is a legitimate excuse and it's a rare event, but the system is that both parties give up on that relationship to damage candidates that do that constantly.
Just look for another job and in the long run you'll be successful. Variance is part of life.
It is still to reduce cost. Hiring would often be in cheaper geographies. The reason to reduce cost is not to e.g. save a business from collapsing but it is to improve the financial results with the hope of making the stock price go up.
> Many companies rotate the bottom N percent to dump the bad performers
I have never seen this actually happen in practice.
It's always specific teams and projects that get fired because some C-Level fucked up and pushed for some ego project, or over-hired and placed those poor souls in useless projects.
What’s actually happened is that activist investors have bought their way onto the boards of highly profitable companies with insufficient poison pills and made them fire some percentage of workers under the guise of making the stock price go up.
Does worker happiness matter at all, or is it OK to have a net miserable company where the bottom line is slightly higher profit than it would otherwise have been if the environment were a pleasant place to work? Because that’s the tradeoff here; rabid billionaire investors are unhappy because numbers aren’t as high as they could be.
Activist investors are a problem. Most recent activist investors have been centered around climate and DEI. Exxon had activist investors try to get on the board. There was a lawsuit over it, I believe it was Arjuna Capital.
Whoever is funding these activist investors, probably a nation/state, is doing it on purpose. Natasha Lamb has to be the dumbest investors to ever live, next to Cathie Wood, IMO. You could invest in an S&P index fund and perform better at 264% for the past 11 years, compared to her 132% realized, and taking far less risk.
I get everyone has their idealistic views of how the world should work, but capitalism dominates every other society, providing better living standards, and security. It is unfortunate we have had leftists in the Democratic party take control of it, and pushing some very strange agendas, that doesn't reflect reality. These strange agendas have been exploited by other nations, like China.
Some activist investors have brought better function management and boards. Carl Icahn is a great example. But he has also brought his fair share of problems.
This is not what happened in recent layoffs where I am familiar with the company. Perhaps you would like to make the argument that in theory, lay-offs can be done that way.
Not what happened with some of the recent layoffs. Some big tech companies generate huge revenues, laid off 5-10% of people (sometimes with false pretext of performance), and do keep hiring at the same time or soon after. This happens not to reduce cost but to stress out remaining employees.