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Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

Low performers always 100% of the time get dropped during layoffs. It's the one window that companies can mostly let go of employees without being sued. (Though, if they lay off too many people in a protected class, still can get sued). What's interesting about a lot of the division or sector-downturn layoffs, that you end up seeing solid performers, and, when you are dropping a good portion of your division - very good performers let go. Most companies try to make a play for keeping their 10x developers - but, I've been in layoffs (Browser Division, Netscape, 1997sh) - where just absolutely everyone was dropped, regardless of performance.

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> Low performers always 100% of the time get dropped during layoffs.

This is totally not true. Usually they make jobs redundant not people. If there's a pool of people doing the same job and that headcount is reduced then it will often be the lowest performers that go however some places have done LIFO or cut the most expensive.

However if you're doing layoffs and you reduce your frontend team the it's likely low performers from the backend team get to stick around.

I've been through 18 layoffs since 1996, about 12 of them while in management. I can only speak to the Bay Area - practices may be different outside. You are correct, that lots of times positions/jobs are made "redundant" as part of the layoffs - but speaking as someone who both observed, and participated in the process - those "redundant" positions were quickly backfilled after the layoffs if there was any need.

The one exception might have been when the entire browser division was dropped back in Netscape - everyone was chopped there - but I can't say with certainty whether low-performing Server Division people were impacted (though IT and HR positions were chopped). So - fair, when a division or operating group is cut wholesale, low-performers in other divisions might not be dropped - but knowing the mindset of management - they really like to take advantage of a layoff as a "get out of jail free" card to let someone go. Much less stress, and way, way less paperwork.

When I saw layoffs at a small company (i.e., you could know all the engineers in the company) you could have probably guessed who they would have been by how well they seemed to perform. When I saw it in a big company, not much rhyme or reason tbh.

Which "makes sense" since companies usually try to keep the team deciding who to lay people off very small for fear of leaks. So the n people at a small company making the decisions might know everyone but the same n people at a large company might barely even know the names of all the middle-managers much less all the individual contributors and how well they are each doing within their role.

Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise at first (not least because I was included, haha) but you’re right.

Most layoffs will include some low performers, but almost never only or all low performers.

If lucky and done right, performance will (inversely) correlate with probability of layoff.

> if they lay off too many people in a protected class, still can get sued

That's interesting, but how would you know? suppose you're in a protected class, and suspect some form of discrimination. How would you fight it?

Everyone is in a protected class because everyone has a nationality, immigration status, ethnicity, sex, sexuality, etc.

The EEOC investigates workplace discrimination, so if you suspect it, it would help to file a complaint with them. They can gather evidence to determine if discrimination took/takes placr and hold the employer accountable.

One of HRs jobs is to track % of people who are > 40. If you are a company of 1000 employees, and you are 25% of each age group 20+,30+,40+,50+ and you do a 100 person layoff, and 100% of them are 40+ - you will be sued and they will almost certainly win.

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