Big Tech's next round of layoffs could start with volunteers
Some Google workers are pushing for voluntary buyouts as a standard first step to trimming head count.Meanwhile, Microsoft recently offered retirement packages on a broad scale for the first time.Buyouts can soften job cuts, though when made available to workers of all tenures, firms risk losing top talent.Voluntary buyouts are having a moment in Big Tech.Workers at Google recently pressed the search giant to make the exit offers a standard first step whenever it plans job cuts — and to extend them to all members of affected teams, regardless of tenure. Microsoft, meanwhile, launched its first broad voluntary retirement program this past spring, offering packages to thousands of longtime US employees.
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Some Google workers are pushing for voluntary buyouts as a standard first step to trimming head count.Meanwhile, Microsoft recently offered retirement packages on a broad scale for the first time.Buyouts can soften job cuts, though when made available to workers of all tenures, firms risk losing top talent.Voluntary buyouts are having a moment in Big Tech.Workers at Google recently pressed the search giant to make the exit offers a standard first step whenever it plans job cuts — and to extend them to all members of affected teams, regardless of tenure. Microsoft, meanwhile, launched its first broad voluntary retirement program this past spring, offering packages to thousands of longtime US employees. It said that more than 30% of those eligible accepted.The developments are raising broader questions in tech, where many once-scrappy startups are now sprawling corporations — and where repeated rounds of layoffs have eliminated scores of jobs in recent years.Now that many of those businesses have workforces that include employees with decades of service, are buyouts — long part of the workforce-reduction playbook at legacy companies from Boeing to General Motors — a fairer, less painful way to reduce head count than layoffs? And should they remain reserved for veteran employees, as they traditionally have been, or be offered more widely?"Buyouts are becoming increasingly compelling for older Silicon Valley companies," said Laszlo Bock, a former Google head of human resources who now advises CEOs.
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- What's the story?
- Some Google workers are pushing for voluntary buyouts as a standard first step to trimming head count.Meanwhile, Microsoft recently offered retirement packages on a broad scale for the first time.Buyouts can soften job cuts, though when made available to workers of all tenures, firms risk losing top talent.Voluntary buyouts are having a moment in Big Tech.Workers at Google recently pressed the search giant to make the exit offers a standard first step whenever it plans job cuts — and to extend them to all members of affected teams, regardless of tenure. Microsoft, meanwhile, launched its first broad voluntary retirement program this past spring, offering packages to thousands of longtime US employees.
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- 1 outlet, average source rating 6.0/10.
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Big Tech's next round of layoffs could start with volunteers
Sources1TypeCoverageBusiness Insider