[yodsanklai]

> If a company is bleeding revenue

Not what happened with some of the recent layoffs. Some big tech companies generate huge revenues, laid off 5-10% of people (sometimes with false pretext of performance), and do keep hiring at the same time or soon after. This happens not to reduce cost but to stress out remaining employees.

[notadoomer236]

They have way, way more employees than they need.

[TZubiri]

>This happens not to reduce cost but to stress out remaining employees.

Or to cull the low performers.

I personally am less stressed when the competition I outperform gets fired.

[yodsanklai]

In my team, two people who got laid off as "low performers" weren't. One was very good but had a bad luck with a very bad project / manager the previous half. The other picked the wrong topic to work on and they weren't well rewarded.

The low performers are usually managed out anyway. The last lay off phase was quite arbitrary.

Also note that high performers often do get promoted, and may become low performers at the next level.

[hn_throwaway_99]

> The low performers are usually managed out anyway.

That may be your experience, and kudos to companies that do this, but particularly in tech I've seen that not be the norm. Egregiously low performers are managed out, but performers who are basically just "low mediocre" can hang on for a long, long time in my experience, and tech companies often use layoffs as an opportunity to get rid of them. To be clear, not everyone who is let go in a layoff is a low performer (a lot of time it's just the luck of whatever business unit you're working in), but companies certainly take advantage of layoffs to get rid of low performers without needing reams and reams of documentation.

[TZubiri]

Collateral damage. I'm fine with that.

If there's an interview for a position and the candidate is 30 minutes late or no shows, maybe there is a legitimate excuse and it's a rare event, but the system is that both parties give up on that relationship to damage candidates that do that constantly.

Just look for another job and in the long run you'll be successful. Variance is part of life.

[YZF]

It is still to reduce cost. Hiring would often be in cheaper geographies. The reason to reduce cost is not to e.g. save a business from collapsing but it is to improve the financial results with the hope of making the stock price go up.