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Which I would definitely prefer. A couple of years ago, two weeks before Thanksgiving, management announced there would be layoffs. No timeline on when the cuts would be shared or number impacted. People had to sit around for weeks, wondering if they had a job. Should I buy Xmas presents? Who knows!
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I'd prefer this honestly. Would take 1-2 weeks to start updating my resume and listing out all accomplishments, relevant projects, etc.
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At-will employment is hard. Honestly, if you aren't planning to lose your job tomorrow when your at-will, you're not being honest with yourself. I wish it were different, but outside a union contract or some other fairly well-combed over business contract, you should not assume you will get paid tomorrow.
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The best strategy is to save up at least 6 months of runway.
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This is the real underlying story, and it may be unfair to expect people to "do this on their own" but in the USA, you really need to do this on your own.
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> Should I buy Xmas presents? Who knows!

If losing your job means you can't afford buying presents, isn't it good to know your job is at risk?

Better than buying presents and then getting fired right?

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That’s the point. Tell me today if I still have a job. Do not make everyone sweat about it for an undetermined amount of time. That’s unnecessary financial stress on all of the people who were not impacted.
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In one case it was "we may be considering layoffs" told to us in September, and right after thanksgiving was "we will be doing layoffs after Christmas" - but the list of those laid off wasn't available.

Maybe we need the corporate version of "Good night, Wesley, I'll no doubt fire you in the morning."

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The problem with advance warning is the employee who decides to sabotage in revenge.

For example, a company I knew in the 80s had a wholly owned subsidiary. It was losing money, so it was decided to close the subsidiary. Management decided that they'd be nice guys, and notified the subsidiary that it would be closed in 90 days and then everyone would be laid off.

90 days later, management arrived to close the facility. It was empty, stripped clean of everything. Not a lick of work was done in the 90 days, and nobody was there. There were reports that trucks had come to the loading dock, and took everything they could carry.

The cost of that led to the collapse of the company.

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I find it hard to blame the workers in this story... it's a poor indictment of the management if they only checked in 3 months later and got this surprise - no wonder the company collapsed!
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The workers who left the company while still collecting a paycheck for 90 days are essentially stealing, and the ones who stripped the premises were also thieves.

I agree it was poor management to not oversee what was happening.

This is why management does not give advance notice of layoffs. Usually, when a person gets laid off, their first notion of it is a security guard is there to help them fill a box with their personal items and escort them out.

Nobody likes this, but it's the inevitable result of a bad apple now and then. For example, most people aren't thieves, but banks still need security guards because there are thieves.

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The company is free to pay the salary and tell the employee not to show up during that time.
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Which is so common it's called "garden leave".
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