Corporate Layoffs: The Depression And Cruelty At This Point The term “responsibility” refers back to the act of figuring out whether or not or now no longer someone is answerable for his or her very own actions. There is likely no appropriate moment for firms to lay off people, of course, but as farewell-to-my-job postings continue to clog LinkedIn, many are thinking, why did they have to do this the week before Thanksgiving or just before Christmas? 
Despite the overall strength of the employment market, major software companies such as Meta Platforms Inc., Salesforce Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. have all laid off or announced intentions to lay off employees in recent months. According to persons familiar with the subject, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. plans to lay off thousands of employees in finance.
Thousands of job layoffs have also occurred in other businesses, with Ford Motor Company, Walmart Inc., and PepsiCo Inc. all downsizing their workforces, leaving many employees wondering: Could I be next? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, December has consistently been the second-highest month for layoffs and discharges since 2000. The term “electronic commerce” refers to the sale of electronic goods. (Because of the epidemic, huge layoffs were documented in March and April as Covid-19 spread and lockdowns were implemented.)
Layoffs around the holidays are a relatively new occurrence. In the 1970s and 1980s, corporations were more mindful of the optics of putting people out of work during the most lovely time of the year, says Andy Challenger, a senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a career services and executive-coaching organisation. He claims the sentiment has passed. “Today, we see corporations making cutbacks once they trust they want to.”
According to Jonathan Reynolds, CEO of Titus Talent Strategies, if a company needs to fire a big number of employees, it should wait until after the holidays, especially if the company made a bad financial judgment by over-hiring in the first place. They may have a difficult difficulty re-hiring talent. This is in which corporations really want to consider their skills and reputation,” he says. “Some people who are more risk-averse may prefer to work for a company that prioritises its employees.
According to Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at Indeed Hiring Lab, the timing of certain job cutbacks might be explained in part by the seasonality of the labour market. Distinct sectors have different seasons when they are busy and require extra assistance. Retail is an excellent example. “There is lots of seasonal employment in October and November to boost up for the holidays when there’s a rise in demand and then individuals are let go in January since Christmas happened,” Mr. Bunker adds.
However, government data show that businesses other than professional and business services, banking, insurance, and real estate have routinely seen above-average layoffs in January for the previous decade. According to researchers, one explanation is that December represents the conclusion of the fiscal year for many organisations. After closing the books, many businesses seek to make modifications for the coming year based on organisational performance and economic forecasts.
“We now realize that we overlooked targets or that our estimates had been inaccurate, and we want to react appropriately,” says George Penn, managing vice president of research and advising for research company Gartner Inc.
Companies that strive to manage expenses and start in the New Year with a new balance sheet frequently have above-average layoff rates in December. This year, some corporate executives are anxious about increasing interest rates and the crisis in Ukraine, in addition to supply-chain concerns and weakening global demand for products and services, says J.P. Gownder, vice president and senior analyst with consultancy firm Forrester Research Inc.
“It’s a reasonable bet that IT businesses that haven’t yet laid off staff are carefully evaluating whether or not to do so. More layoffs are not out of the question in the coming weeks. Nonetheless, December unemployment claims numbers demonstrate that the labour market remains strong. In addition, a number of recently laid-off individuals who posted about their job loss on LinkedIn and other networking sites reported fast getting leads and, eventually, new careers. 
The Labor Department reported this week that initial jobless claims, a barometer for layoffs, decreased by 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 211,000 last week, the lowest level since late September. Claims are up from lows this spring, but remain at levels that imply many companies are holding fast to workers. These economic issues are arriving at the same time as some businesses are planning for the upcoming fiscal year.
For instance, the fiscal years of Google, Meta, and Amazon conclude at the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023. They can be trying to eliminate expenses from their balance sheets before their fiscal years end. For instance, if a worker is let go immediately and given six weeks of severance, the first quarter’s expenditures are reduced. Even if employees get a longer notice period, such as three months, their wages would no longer be recorded at the end of the first quarter.
There is a component of planning ahead at work, according to J.P. Gownder, vice president and principal analyst at market research firm Forrester. Budget planning doesn’t apply to every business, for instance, Microsoft just undertook layoffs, and its fiscal year ends in June. That’s kind of bad since it implies that some people will lose their employment before to the holidays and the New Year. However, in other aspects, Gownder said that some businesses could just be following other businesses in appraising the state of the economy.
In the computer industry, “observing other peers—not necessarily rivals, but comparable businesses to yours—could lead you to think, ‘Ah, this is the moment,'” he added. There is some collective thinking in Silicon Valley. The following two weeks are crucial since Thanksgiving is coming up soon. Companies may not want to let off staff around the holidays since doing so might damage business morale, immobilise the workers who were retained, and have an impact on hiring in the future, according to Gownder. 
The brightest talent won’t work for organisations that arbitrarily and without any compassion fire employees at the first indication of problems, he claimed. This implies that if IT companies want to make layoffs, they should do so in the next two weeks or risk having to add these additional expenses and consequences to their profit and loss statements going into the next quarter.
Severance would lessen the impact, and assisting laid-off people find new employment, like Airbnb did back in 2020, would also help with some planning, but the timing still depends on how individual businesses are going to make their planning decisions. There is a mechanism in place, but regrettably, I don’t believe it is particularly focused on avoiding upsetting people during Christmas.
Edited by Prakriti Arora
