I doubt it was cold as in no prior information cold but more like "cold sounding". If the layoffs affected > 50 employees then it would have triggered the CALWarn act which is the California additions to the federal warn act. So the oracle employees got 60 days notice and have known the email was coming today for 2 months. If they didn't then Oracle owes them 60 days of pay and benefits.

▲

BryantD a day ago | parent [-]

The usual way companies handle this is to set the actual layoff date as 60 days from when the email goes out. If you hear about a mass layoff including two months of salary for everyone affected, that’s what’s going on. Typically system access is revoked but the paychecks keep coming as usual and vacation keeps accruing, because you’ve got that extra two months of “employment.” The company also gets the benefit of being able to call you back in if it turns out there was something vital you were doing that never got documented.

This, the company stays compliant with all the regulations but they don’t have to worry about disaffected employees during those 60 days.

	▲	spectra72 a day ago \| parent [-]
		I was an Oracle employee that was laid off in the March wave. That’s exactly how it worked. 6am email. You were an employee through any notification/WARN period. But no access. No work. Garden leave euphemistically. WARN varies by state and location. And usually is only applied to onsite employees. And only if the layoff affects certain number or more. So if you are a remote employee, you were done at the next pay period. For me in CO that was 4/10. Not 60 days obviously as I didn’t qualify for a WARN notice due to being remote. Various CA colleagues were through May or close to that.