> Isn't this the company that is trying to get rid of 25% of their employees?

Just clarifying this in general, when a company makes a voluntary offer to some segment of employees, especially at this size, it is a statistics game of how many people accept the buy out.

They did not make the offer to 25% of the employees to downsize by 25%, they did it to downsize by 5% (or something like that), and then made the offer based on how many they expect to accept. This is specifically covered in this line of the geekwire article:

> Microsoft didn’t provide a projection for how many employees will accept, but the company told GeekWire it anticipates a much smaller share than the roughly 30% who took its earlier voluntary retirement offer, which went to longtime employees more likely to take the deal.

They probably expect 10-20% of those offered to take it, which would result in a 2.5-5% total downsizing.

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maxboone a day ago | parent | next [-]

Why do they offer these buy outs at all, doesn't the US have at will employment?

Or is this just a gesture of goodwill to avoid people jumping the ship on their own?

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tesin a day ago | parent | next [-]

At will applies on a one by one basis - at a certain headcount, WARN legislation applies https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/layoffs/warn

And the other part is the "goodwill" you mention - if you jettison people for nothin en masse, word gets out, and make it hard to hire in the future

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NotMichaelBay a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think both parties probably benefit; people who are more likely to take the offer are those who have another reason to leave (unfulfilled, etc). This will benefit the company in the long run because they can eventually replace them with someone who want to join (people applying for the job).

	▲	ifwinterco a day ago \| parent [-]
		Can go the other way though: people who've been there for a while, are motivated and back themselves to get another job will take redundancy (i.e. the people you want to keep). People who aren't motivated and/or don't back themselves to get another job will stay (i.e. probably the people you want to get rid of)

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gmane a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you lay people off, you’re on the hook for their unemployment. A voluntary buyout avoids that, and also avoids mandatory reporting for layoffs.

	▲	evenhash a day ago \| parent [-]
		That’s not entirely accurate. Washington State pays unemployment, not the company. The state funds unemployment by taxing payrolls, but it’s much more indirect than most people think. Claims do affect the rate they pay next year, but the company isn’t “on the hook” for you personally, at least not any more than they are for your social security income.

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StableAlkyne a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Voluntary reductions do not have the same reporting requirements or protections that actual layoffs have.

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coredog64 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A layoff of any real size has negative impacts to their unemployment insurance premiums and restricts their ability to file PERM for employees. Meeting those targets with voluntary separation prevents those impacts.

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a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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rustystump a day ago | parent | prev [-]

You can at will fire but that doesnt stop lawsuits. Most of these require signing docs to get the payout. It is a way to cut cleanly and derisk the cut

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NichoPaolucci a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah - I get it. Just poking the bear a bit. We've had some major incidents this year from multiple vendors, it has been aggravating.

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AnimalMuppet a day ago | parent [-]

Hmm. More than normal?

And everybody has spent a year letting AI write code. Correlation is not causation, but I wonder...

	▲	esseph a day ago \| parent [-]
		The speed of change has accelerated drastically at some organizations, so even if quality stayed the same, the number of outages would increase because of the # of changes has condensed to happen over much shorter time frames.

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a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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asdff a day ago | parent | prev [-]

The fact that it is always Big Even Number shows how stupid it is. Imagine if it was serious like "23.5176%" then you'd know they actually did their homework on leaning up operations instead of just cutting off limbs and seeing if it can still walk or not.