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Comment by duggable | Hacker News Reader

> Today we will let 1,000 of our colleagues go and furlough approximately 1,100 more, while reducing hours for others. Your department leaders will be in touch this morning to discuss how this affects you individually, and letters with more details and FAQs will follow this afternoon.

Honest question - is it normal to announce layoffs publicly before telling the affected employees? I guess I can understand it from a PR perspective, but it must be awful to read that and sit around waiting to find out if you're affected.

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The first person who gets laid off is going to immediately call The New York Times, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, etc. with probably-incorrect information about the layoffs. So PR wants to be out ahead of that. The real world doesn't have atomic transactions, so you have to pick between that scenario and one where some people are worried about their job for a few hours.

> The first person who gets laid off is going to immediately call The New York Times, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, etc

Why do people do this? What do they get out of it? They don't pay for tip-offs do they? Seems unethical anyway.

Revenge? Spite? A feeling of importance and control in a situation completely out of their control? Shits and giggles?

Not sure angry human beings are the most rational actors in most cases.

Usually it's more people who get laid off start talking about it on Twitter, then the news media get wind of it and start talking with the laid off employees, and find some willing to describe in detail exactly what went down, send along a screenshot of the announcement email, etc.

If I got laid off I'd talk about it on Twitter too. That's a natural reaction for many people. You want to commiserate with others in the same situation and share useful unemployment and job-finding resources. Hell, a big layoff gets its own hashtag.

Why does anyone talk to a journalist when they don't get anything out of it or advance their interests? People like to tell their story, especially when aggrieved.

There are also legal aspects to doing layoffs (WARN Act, providing return transportation to home country for employees on certain visas[1], plus state-specific legislation like in California). Unethical companies have gone without doing these things in the past, so accountability is in everyone's interest here.

  [1] 8 USC §1184 (c)(5)(A): In the case of an alien who is provided nonimmigrant status under section 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) or 1101(a)(15)(H)(ii)(b) of this title and who is dismissed from employment by the employer before the end of the period of authorized admission, the employer shall be liable for the reasonable costs of return transportation of the alien abroad.

I think if someone gets laid off from their job they should feel free to tell whoever they want about that. Don't you think so?

Here is a better question. Why not do this?

If you got fired, you don't really own the company anything anymore.

> Why not do this?

Because what do you get out of it? They don't pay you for a tip. Why do free work for a media conglomerate, even if you didn't care about the ethics?

> Because what do you get out of it?

Because they felt like it?

I can definitely see how someone might think that it is cool to cause a news story.

> Why do free work

You are overestimating the amount of "work" that would go into something like this. I do stuff all the time, just because I felt like it.

I mean you're literally contributing to HN for free right now. Same thing, different motivation, different company benefiting from your free contribution.

Or back in the day, post on f*ckedcompany. Though pud wouldn't bring that site back now. Back then it was because of irrational exuberance. Now, people are losing their jobs because of pandemic.

My guess is that it's such a significant share of the workforce that it is considered material information for a public company.

For other commenters asking about the workforce: Yelp has an army of salespeople because they have to sell to so many small businesses. What they do is frankly amazing to me. I used to sit on the sales floor sometimes to experience the excitement. It seems like they'd be the most affected, and I hope they fare well. [Source: used to work there in engineering]

I worked in the semiconductor industry in the 90's, when it was going through many waves of layoffs and plant closings as the manufacturing went overseas. It is actually the right way to do things, to say to your employees "we're going to have a layoff soon, it will be about this many people, those laid off will get this severance package". Then, you announce it publicly, the same day you've announced it internally. People get a few days to let it sink in, which does suck, but if you have any kind of severance then you know that it's not like dying, and you get treated a little more like an adult.

Compare to the way things were done in the early 80's when the same industry was new at this, they did it as a "surprise" all at once, hustling people out the door and people don't have any time to exchange email addresses with coworkers, etc.

Of course, if you're not offering any severance package, then you have more of an incentive to do things the wrong way...

This is usually coordinated. PR talks to a friendly outlet, gives them the exclusive on the story with the caveat that the timing is released a few minutes after employees have been informed. This lets them get correct information out, control the narrative, and gets the friendly news outlet an exclusive story. Generally speaking, it's also done to be respectful to the people who just got laid off.

Wouldn't the people who prepared that announcement work at Yelp in Marketing/PR? Or at least have had to approve something before it was announced? So some employees must have had some knowledge. Maybe they knew they were not going to be laid off/furloughed.

For a publicly traded company it might be required, otherwise it's effectively material insider information that you've just shared with the whole company.

Most of the time this is coordinated - that there were group calls to personally announce the layoffs and who was staying.

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