Gives you a peace of mind once it is over. Also, allows you to prepare contingencies. Our company only now was recovering from the last year layoffs and now it is suddenly hit again. It would've been much more humane to know in advance not to relax.

Depending on jurisdiction an employer might be obligated to announce a mass lay-off in advance. It gives more time for people to look for another job.

Really? Does it even help if you don't know who it is? Do they expect each person to look for another job and have it lined up on hold just in case he is one of the 20% that actually get fired?

usually in those jurisdictions, they insta-layoff, but keep them on payroll covering the "advanced notice".

This gives the impacted people plenty of notice and time to look for new opportunities.

Now they have 80% of the company trying to leave.

But it shapes how you'll feel about the event & the future for a long long time after. The company was honest with you. When the day came it wasn't a complete shock.

I don't have a conclusive answer, but I'd want to know I think & respect companies that have the bravery to be up front.

I have experienced 2 layoffs, once as an IC and once as an EM.

As an IC, the day it happened and the weeks after it happened were tough, but I knew if I was the one impacted and my job was 'safe' for the time being.

As an EM, I knew months in advance, but I had no idea if I would be on the list. This caused months of stress while I planned for promotions and projects for people that might not (and eventually weren't) there after the rif.

Ripping off the band aid is much more human than telling people "sometime in the next 12 mo we may or may not fire a large portion of you, so please keep giving your 100%"