[qqtt]

When you hear about layoffs these days, you will usually see terms like "2 months of salary" as part of the severance package. What this actually is, is paying the employee throughout the entire "notice" period of the WARN Act. The WARN Act says that any company doing layoffs must give 60 days notice to employees, so to comply companies layoff employees but keep them on payroll for 2 months to meet the obligations of the law.

Technically, if the employee is still on payroll, the company is within it's rights to ask them to continue working, and violating company policy during this time (ie, not even showing up for work) could be grounds for regular termination which would not require any severance payments at all.

[AlexandrB]

IANAL, but this doesn't make any sense. You can't fire someone but actually not really fire them. What if they find another job in the meantime?

[imgabe]

You fire them as of a date two months from now. For those two months they are technically still employed, but do not have to come to work unless asked. Just like when you resign with two weeks notice, you tell them you're going to end your employment in two weeks and you're still employed until then.

If the employee finds another job, they should tell them when that job asks "when can you start?" a date after the two month severance period is over. It's not that complicated.

[Spooky23]

It’s really gardening leave, because you don’t have a contract. They decided to pay you without requiring work; they can change their minds.

In a union job or banking gig where you have a contract, this doesn’t happen. The law in the US doesn’t protect you from this sort of thing. Sometimes they can run afoul of state law though.

[dmak]

That's really informative, thank you.