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No warning is required. In practice it depends mostly on the size of the company and the size of the layoffs... I think most companies would like to layoff wi
by bmm6o 11y ago
No warning is required. In practice it depends mostly on the size of the company and the size of the layoffs... I think most companies would like to layoff without warning, but that's not always practical. It also depends on if they are hoping to reduce headcount in general, in which case they may make a general offer of some money if employees leave... this isn't generally a viable strategy if it's e.g. a division that's being closed.
If the company isn't in dire financial straits, it's common to give some severance pay, usually tied to length of employment. This isn't a requirement.
With the US's ridiculous system of getting most health insurance through your employer, it does mean that you lose many of those health benefits. There is a legal provision called COBRA where you can continue for a time on your previous employer's health care (at your expense). The ACA (Obamacare) makes losing your health insurance less dire than it was in the past (for things like "pre-existing conditions"), but it still sucks.
- jm4 11y agoWrong. Read up on WARN. There are conditions where an employer is required to give warning and others where no notice is required. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraining_Notification_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraini...
- cujo 11y agoAside from the many ways to get exceptions, this little nugget.... >An employer who violates the WARN provisions is liable to each employee for an amount equal to back pay and benefits for the period of the violation, up to 60 days. ...pretty much says companies can do what they want. For a lot of these folks, that's a severance.
- bmm6o 11y agoAs the other responder stated, even in cases where this law applies the employer can opt for "pay in lieu of notice". So 60 days severance pay obviates the notification requirement. That aside, there are a lot of scenarios where this doesn't apply (e.g. "If 50 to 499 workers lose their jobs and that number is less than 33 percent of the employer’s total, active workforce at a single employment site"). I'm not going to pretend to have numbers to back it up, but especially in the software industry this exemption seems like it would cover a fair number of layoffs.