OP is talking about the terms of layoffs (as in the severance package) rather than about layoffs in general.

Unions probably have better severance packages but how many times is a typical worker laid off in their life?

There are costs to increasing the cost of a layoff. It means corporations will rely on credentialism more, and take fewer risks. I'd rather live in a world where you can jump into software without a college degree, but maybe have to save a little money at your very well paying job than one that only hires college grads with a 3.5 GPA but you get a generous severance package.

I worked for 5 jobs or so in my decade of experience. Every single one had layoffs (usually 10%+). Layoffs aren’t that common in tech until now but were always prevalent in the “industry”.

I think there is a large difference between number of employees who have worked at a company that had has layoffs, and number of times they were laid off.

Assuming your experience is representative of every company (I don't think it is) then every company lays off 10% of their workforce every 2 years.

Assume a random distribution (I don't think this is true) that means the average worker get laid off once every twenty years. So you're looking at 2 lay offs a career. Savings should be sufficient for this. Policies or agreements like this just make good hirs cheaper, and bad hires more expensive.

I'm willing to bet that LinkedIn's severance terms are significantly more generous that what a standard union shop can negotiate for its members.

2 months + 1 week per year at LinkedIn. Not good based on my experience with tech layoffs over the past few decades.

Compare to union shops though?

I know of some factories that shut down for annual maintenance for several months every year, and they lay everyone off. There is another factory (same company) that works opposite months of the year so in theory people are laid off and just switch between the two factories, but depending on schedule and work needs you can be out of work for a while.

I also know big projects often hire union labor (electricians, plumbers), and lay them off at the end of the project. I have no idea what the terms of this are.

You're comparing situations in different industries with different economics, never mind the union situations.

But that is the context if your read up a few levels we were told union shops have layoffs all the time. We cannot compare them is my point.

When my father was pushed into early requirement, he got a full years severance and has his pension was topped up to 100%.

Do you think the LinkedIn people will get their pensions fully paid out?

Companies like Google & Salesforce paid out 6-8 months of severance (depending on tenure) and accelerated remaining stock vests, so not all that different.

First waves of layoffs are famously more generous with their severance agreements than the following ones.

They are already not as generous as they could be (for example, Google on January 20th boasted about accelerated vesting for the notice period of US employees that would be laid off... But employees in other regions didn't get the same terms)

...and they are going to get worse and worse, with future layoffs

>employees in other regions didn't get the same terms

Yep, that's what happens when you have labor laws that dictate the terms. It cuts both ways.

You're doubly wrong:

1- the laws dictate minimum terms for the agreements, they don't put ceilings on the maximums

2- the regions in which employees got shafted in that way aren't the regions in which employment laws are stricter

> 1- the laws dictate minimum terms for the agreements, they don't put ceilings on the maximums

That's not how it works in many jurisdictions: if a company does a round of layoffs and exceeds the terms ... those are the new terms going forward for that company.

Do you have any reference for this? In which jurisdiction does it work like that?

Having seen the difference between USA's severance packages vs Europes I think you're wrong.

Also relevant are the difference between overall comp for software engineering jobs in the USA vs Europe.

I believe the implication is that those layoffs have better overall terms.

Better overall terms than what? As far as I can tell there's no information available yet on what kind of severance package these people got. It's definitely not in the source article.