Job losses

Employee attrition in all forms- natural or forced, opportunistic or circumstantial, employee initiated or employer driven – has been a topic under my special focus and the posts by me covering this aspect have evoked passionate response. However, when we see marquee names like Google, Amazon, Twitter etc laying of thousands of people at a very short or no notice and that too at foreign locations where a few sources don’t even have a shelter of their own, the problem back home here in India seems rather insignificant. I have seen parents taking a lot of pride in announcing hiring of their wards by Google, FB. Twitter and Amazon, but the recent spate of layoffs by these gains is extremely worrisome.

If laying off employees is solely due to company not doing well financially and it’s product line becoming obsolete, something that’s beyond the purview or control of employees, it’s understandable, though any good corporate would try its best to make such performance/financial linked severance to be sweet and smooth to the extent possible. When companies do well and assume marquee status, laying off employees for the reasons such as improving productivity, reducing operating cost, automation of processes etc could be myopic. Companies, who treat their staff and employees as an important resource, an important input, value their contribution and take care of them by re or upskilling them to prepare them to deliver the desired benefits. It takes a corporate number of years and some serious investment through training and financial outlay to prepare it’s ready to deliver manpower and laying it off under the slightest of the pretexts could be myopic, as aforesaid.

Meanwhile, I understand that Indians laid off by large companies in US are exploring alternative opportunities and many of them are getting rehired too. For the rest, I am sure their skills will stand them in good stead here in India. I dread the prospects of people getting laid off at an age when they should be delivering peak performance and securing themselves socially and financially.