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As an American I have not heard of it either

End of fiscal year, companies will sometimes do a round of layoffs to juice reports (e.g. lower ongoing costs expected for the next year). Some industries also ditch older (read: more highly paid) employees for a new batch of interns to keep average salaries down.

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/01/1101505691/short-term-profits-and-long-term-consequences-did-jack-welch-break-capitalism

The CEO that managed to take GE from being the single most valuable technology company and turn it into a poorly performing stagnant mess popularized the idea of survival of the fittest within companies. He asserted that by cutting the bottom performers and even whole divisions regularly that it would leave a stronger, better company. He set targets to lay off the bottom 10% every year regardless of whether it was financially necessary.

In the short term, this strategy makes efficiency metrics look really good, and with good looking metrics, the stock goes up temporarily. However, there are major costs to layoffs that take months, years, and decades to materialize. Eventually, forced churn ruins the best of companies, from GE to IBM. Unfortunately, this management style is still incredibly popular amongst publicly traded companies. Most of the investors are willing to accept the eventual demise of a company if it means a decade of really good returns in the meantime.

It is 100% a real thing. American tech companies go through this cycle where they over-hire (on purpose) and then later on they lay a bunch of people off to "cut costs" and appear "financially responsible". This is also easier to manage (if you're a lazy dipshit) because you don't need to worry about your exact headcount so much, you can adjust later if you have too many or too few people. (It also gives a good excuse to get rid of people you don't like but who would otherwise be very hard to fire.)

Investors eat that shit up.

Since companies tend to report earnings and things around the same time, companies engaging in this strategy all tend to lay people off at the same time.

Here's a page tracking this phenomenon.

I think that's a virtual "season", more like time period until market stabilizes enough not to throw away people just in order to show pretty graphs to shareholders

It's also an election year, gotta keep everyone one their toes during our quadrennial Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich festival.

My largish company has had layoffs at roughly the same time of year for the past few years. I think of it as a season. I think when it happens depends on upper management/board at each company.

Labor laws vary by province and I don't know of any labor law that makes it an obligation to pay over a year of salary after a year of employment, the most probable reason you got that is the employment directives/your employment contract you had with your previous employer.

90 days is pretty standard in the US, at least with bigger companies that have to abide by the WARN Act

It's good to know they have your back(pocket).

That's a management problem. Managers should be getting poor performers up to speed (or firing them). Dealing with it through layoffs juices the stock and makes investors think the company is LeAn

Unfortunately cuts don't usually target the dead weight. I've worked in IT consulting for a while now, and cuts to consultants is always the first step. Just across the board, companies slash their consulting budgets blindly. Most of the time, we are leaving behind company critical systems to be supported by the "dead weight" people that couldn't tell their ass from a hole in the ground.

I'm currently on an integrated team, meaning half our developers are consultants and half are regular employees. The consultants consistently put out significantly higher quality work in a fraction of the time. But as of Jan 1, we cut almost all of them. And as of June, we're cutting the rest. What's going to be left behind is half the number of people that will put out less than a quarter of the results than before.

But the reality is that consultants are easy to cut. You don't have to call them layoffs or pay them severance.

And does the dead weight get cut during layoff season? Or does it affect people who are capable but won't take bullshit from management?

I'm in tech and there's a lot of dead weight in my company, but our layoffs don't really target those people. We just lost several of the best engineers in my department for stupid reasons (introducing a new c-suite position), and it caused problems immediately.

I don't understand why we can't name and shame these days. They shamed you. They have tarnished your rep by making you redundant. They showed no professional courtesy. Fuck them. Name and shame.

These cunts continue to do the rounds because no one ever outright calls these cunts out.

Line goes up!!

I've been in your shoes. I hope you are interviewing. Your boss will not tell you the truth, but what you need to hear.