[makecheck]

Of course they are. Many, many companies offer a “voluntary first” incentive to avoid the bad press and services they might otherwise have to provide to laid-off people. Jobs went away. Sugar-coating the exact method of ending the jobs doesn’t change that.

[root_axis]

Your cynicism seems misplaced; up to a year's salary as severance sounds like a pretty sweet sugar-coating to me. They didn't "avoid bad press", they simply didn't do anything to merit bad press. What's wrong with someone voluntarily choosing to take money in exchange for a resignation? It's not as if there is something inherently wrong with "jobs going away" when your definition includes people voluntarily quitting their job.

[RHSeeger]

To be fair, it's not entirely resignation. It's "take this X and resign, or be put on the list to be fired and get something less than X". It's still better than just being layed off, but it not as nice as a voluntary resignation.

[root_axis]

The company solicited for volunteers, they didn't target individuals and give them an ultimatum.

[Spivak]

I don't really see it as sugarcoating, this is way better than the alternative. They're giving their employees a generous heads up, offering an incentive to anyone who finds other employment, and people who really don't want to leave likely won't have to.

[erichurkman]

And they get to structure who leaves and when. You can wind down projects responsibly, shift resources over time, train people on new tasks. Far less disruptive than a sudden layoff.

[root_axis]

Great point. This kind of arrangement assures that the exiting employee will be happy to cooperate with training their replacement in good faith.

[JackFr]

> Of course they are.

Why? Because you say so? We should ignore the literal words of the press release in favor of something you think may happen?

In fact, the structure of the the offer is one that offer's a far greater incentive to those with a lot of seniority vs those who are newer. If we assume that many of these might be technician jobs under a union contract where more years of service equals higher pay, they could have more senior workers take the package, immediately hire new employees and save a decent amount of money.

Granted, I've only seen that strategy in practice with municipal workers, but it makes no more assumptions than you do.

[ceejayoz]

> We should ignore the literal words of the press release

As a general rule, this is a good idea.

[EpicEng]

Are you familiar with the concept of PR?