Management doesn't like scaring their workers and wait for recessions to fire low performers all at once. Hiring someone else's scraps isn't the best strategy, and digging for the diamonds in the dirt is very expensive.
Management doesn't like scaring their workers and wait for
recessions to fire low performers all at once. Hiring someone
else's scraps isn't the best strategy, and digging for the
diamonds in the dirt is very expensive.
Can we please dispense with this notion that layoffs target "low performers"? There is zero evidence across any of the current round of layoffs that low performers were systematically targeted. There was zero evidence of this in 2008. There was zero evidence of this in 2001. Mass layoffs hit in a number of ways and "performance" is just one of the criteria used to determine who gets the axe. It might not even be the primary one --- there are plenty of stories, even in this specific layoff, of people who were just promoted and are now being let go.
From the perspective of the individual worker, it's far better to model layoffs as a random lottery. Telling yourself, "Oh, I'll work hard, I'll get good performance reviews, that'll save me from the layoff monster," is just cope. Good people get laid off. Bad people get laid off. Mediocre people get laid off. It's just luck.
