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Perspective from a recently fired probationary federal employee...

Whoa. Layoffs are standard practice in private and publicly held companies, union and non-union, and a merger could result In wholesale layoffs for redundant departments. No one should take their job as a lifetime appointment. At Goldman Sachs, for example, the bottom 10% are laid off yearly. You’re clearly out of your depth regarding this issue. And the rest is just an opinion.

IBM
  • In 1993, IBM laid off 60,000 people, the largest corporate job cut in U.S. history at the time.
Tech company layoffs
  • In 2023, Google laid off 12,000 jobs, the largest layoff in the company's history.
  • In 2024, Intel laid off more than 15,000 jobs, and Amazon laid off over 27,000 positions.
  • In 2024, Volkswagen AG laid off 35,000 people, Tesla laid off 14,000 people, and Dell laid off 12,500 people.
Other major layoffs
  • Sears laid off 50,000 jobs and closed 113 stores in 1993.
  • Citigroup laid off 50,000 jobs during the 2008 financial crisis.
  • General Motors closed five factories and cut 47,000 jobs in 2009.
  • Boeing laid off 31,000 jobs after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

  • In 2020, the U.S. had 13,516,000 job layoffs, the highest number ever.
  • In 2022, the U.S. had 15.4 million layoffs
Now run the numbers of how much each of those companies spent in severance and benefits for those layoffs. They DID NOT fire all those people for cause to save money, and if they had they would have been sued and lost.
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Perspective from a recently fired probationary federal employee...

Whoa. Layoffs are standard practice in private and publicly held companies, union and non-union. No one should take their job as a lifetime appointment. At Goldman Sachs, for example, the bottom 10% are laid off yearly. You’re clearly out of your depth regarding this issue. And the rest is just an opinion.
I’ve personally RIFed hundreds of people in ten or so different states (and the UK) and I’ve been deposed as a witness in a wrongful termination lawsuit. How about you?

I will admit I’ve never worked for the federal government, but I suspect that their protections are at least as good if not better than those afforded the private sector. Of course, in the private sector, employee protections vary significantly from state to state.

Falsely firing someone for cause is all about denial of benefits. That’s why Elon and crew are executing the cuts this way, because there is no budget earmarked to pay for them. I’m confident that a fifteen year federal employee is guaranteed certain financial and benefit considerations upon termination that are voided when terminated for cause. If the OP has a history of good to exceptional performance reviews with not a single issue identified in their history, they deserve exactly what has been promised upon their termination and the courts can generally be counted on to agree with me.

I have fired people for cause, and the process is very specific. You have to communicate and document the issues, put the employee on a PIP (performance improvement plan) and then only after what is at least typically thirty days (depending on the state) you have to document and communicate again how the employee has failed to improve their performance. Fail to follow that process, particularly with an individual who is in a protected class (age, race, gender, sexual orientation) and you open yourself up to a lawsuit.

Of course, a PIP is not required in cases involving violence, theft of other illegal activity.

Tens of thousands of people are being falsely fired for cause with zero documentation to support that determination because Elon and team are lying. The courts are likely to find in favor of the plaintiffs in those cases.

Perspective from a recently fired probationary federal employee...

I’m very sorry to hear your story, and there are tens of thousands of other people going through the exact same experience right now. What you are being subjected to is wrong morally and is likely to be found wrong legally as well.

With that in mind, be sure you have hard copies of as many of your performances reviews and other relevant personnel files as you can get your hands on. I have some experience with labor laws and terminations and in the private sector being terminated for cause with no evidence or record of poor performance is problematic to say the least. I suspect your protections as a federal employee are even better.

There will be class action lawsuits and they will have a very good chance of being successful. That doesn’t help you today but it could have a meaningful impact down the road.

Regarding the overall situation, I suspect many people will soon have firsthand experience that the federal government is not nearly as bloated as they have been led to believe. Large organizations inherently have inefficiencies, and the larger the organization the more true that is. The applies to any organization, public or private. It’s simply an immutable truth. But that doesn’t mean that you can cut 20%, 30% or 80% (as was humorously suggested in this thread) without impacting or destroying the effectiveness of the organization. And determining and cutting where there are actual inefficiencies and managing the required transition is not something that the world’s richest man and an army of young developers can accomplish. We are seeing that every day now.

The GOP have proposed $4.5T in tax cuts over the next decade. If they were serious about cutting the deficit, those tax cuts wouldn’t be the cornerstone of their first budget under Trump 2, but here we are.

I wish you good luck as you navigate this process. Stay strong and focused and you will land on your feet.
Whoa. Layoffs are standard practice in private and publicly held companies, union and non-union, and a merger could result In wholesale layoffs for redundant departments. No one should take their job as a lifetime appointment. At Goldman Sachs, for example, the bottom 10% are laid off yearly. You’re clearly out of your depth regarding this issue. And the rest is just an opinion.

IBM
  • In 1993, IBM laid off 60,000 people, the largest corporate job cut in U.S. history at the time.
Tech company layoffs
  • In 2023, Google laid off 12,000 jobs, the largest layoff in the company's history.
  • In 2024, Intel laid off more than 15,000 jobs, and Amazon laid off over 27,000 positions.
  • In 2024, Volkswagen AG laid off 35,000 people, Tesla laid off 14,000 people, and Dell laid off 12,500 people.
Other major layoffs
  • Sears laid off 50,000 jobs and closed 113 stores in 1993.
  • Citigroup laid off 50,000 jobs during the 2008 financial crisis.
  • General Motors closed five factories and cut 47,000 jobs in 2009.
  • Boeing laid off 31,000 jobs after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

  • In 2020, the U.S. had 13,516,000 job layoffs, the highest number ever.
  • In 2022, the U.S. had 15.4 million layoffs
  • Like
Reactions: stray
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