The one time in my life I was laid off, I was given a choice of submitting a letter of resignation, or of being laid off for economic reasons (so no underhanded threats of "underperformance").

The way this was presented to me was that to some employers, being laid off for any reason was considered a bit of a stigma, so by resigning, I could truthfully state (and the company would confirm) that I had left of my own accord.

Not 100% sure what consequence this would have had on potential unemployment insurance claims, because I was about to emigrate anyway and not interested in looking for other work. So I chose to resign.

I don't think this is the case, but in some cases getting a severance package might be a good option: you get the money and can look for another job, while if you're on unemployment benefits you lose those as soon as you get hired again.

Is there a difference in Portugal between being laid off (for economic reasons) and being fired (for underperforming or misconduct)? I got the impression, perhaps mistaken, that the choice for some of the workers referenced in the article was get fired or take this meager deal.

They could be using the old HR blackmail trick from the book where if you agree to leave they promise to give you an awesome letter of recommendation whereas if you let them fire you for underperforming reasons they'll give you a iffy sounding letter of recommendation.

In Portugal being laid off means (aproximately) getting 2 thirds of your sallary (one third payed by state and one third payed by the employer) and hope to get back to work. Being fired means getting 80%(?) of your sallary and possibly a severance IF you have worked continuosly for at least 6 months AND have a dependent work contract (or equivalent). If you quit you get nothing.

You are confusing a layoff and a furlough. It's not your fault though, the Portuguese government decided to call a furlough a layoff for who knows what reason.

Don't know for Portugal, but in Belgium "underperforming" is also an economic reason, you get the social security protection. Misconduct on the other hand gets you suspended from govt protection for some times.

Unless you do something so horrible that it is talked in the news/wide industry, rarely any company will contact your previous employers. They may ask 'so, why did you leave company X?' but in 20 or so years, I never had a company in Portugal ask for an actual reference. (I had in the UK, US and Switzerland though)

While I am not sure, I think legally here is a very grey area as employment information is protected, but I'm not 100% sure.

Because they were threatened with their career potentially being ruined with a bad reference?

Do people follow references much?

I don't think anyone has ever contacted my previous employers, despite me having supplied their contact details as a reference numerous times over the years.

Companies are discouraged from saying anything more than the facts of employment ("We can confirm that Bob was employed as a software developer between these dates...") these days, so there's not much value in the new employer bothering as far as I understand.

I've had previous employers contacted more than once, but it was always by a third party background check agency. I doubt "we fired him for cause" would have mattered.

At this point in the US most companies will refuse to say anything about you other than confirming that you worked there and what your title was. To do anything more is a potential litigation minefield.

Laws are getting tighter too. It’s now illegal in many parts of the US to ask you how much you made in your previous job when that used to be a fairly common question.

> Laws are getting tighter too. It’s now illegal in many parts of the US to ask you how much you made in your previous job when that used to be a fairly common question.

Sadly, many companies report your salary to the credit reporting agencies (or a tangential agency).

In German speaking countries this is a thing. It's bizarre, but there's a kind of unofficial meaning given to certain phrases in the reference letter.

Not sure anyone with a brain actually cares about it, but they do ask about it if you apply for a job.

Is that common? In the US old job never give references either good or bad. Just state dates of employment. I guess they just don’t want to deal with the can of worms of dealing with former employees disagreeing with whatever they say and possibly going to litigation.

I never understood this. There's nothing preventing a previous employer from giving someone a bad reference if they were to voluntarily leave either.

Sure, but if a company fires people for cause, its future references might well state that (even more so if its just terminated several people 'for cause' to save severance money and is having to create the appearance of actual performance reviews to try to make its breach of employment law less obvious). If staff 'voluntarily' leave and save the company severance money, there's no incentive for them to make any claims about termination due to underperformance or say anything else unpleasant. In theory, they might even deliver on promises of 'really nice letters of recommendation' to avoid disgruntled ex-employees talking to employment lawyers.

On the other hand, many jurisdictions have laws which make it pretty difficult to fire people for cause without clear evidence of misconduct or performance improvement plans and probationary periods for underperformance, so there's a good chance the termination threat is just a bluff to see who will resign...

Employment lawyers would salivate at a case like this