My wife was once fired with the argument that she was performing poorly. She counter-argued and said she was the most productive employee they had, that their argument simply wasn't true, and that she understood if their cashflow was tight and that that was the real reason. She offered to flexibly go down in hours at the convenience of the employer. She didn't force them to admit the real reason, and when they got their cashflow back and offered to give her full hours, she politely declined.

>they can avoid paying unemployment benefits as well.

Not every US state allows this. Also, sometimes if a certain number of people are all fired at the same time due to "performance", they still have to pay unemployment.

For those that may not have experience in enterprise facing sales (same topic, different submission):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38964345

I got the impression that she was a new hire (3 months minus holidays, but maybe I misheard?).

But it is clear from the video that this is a mass layoff, not firing an individual based on her performance. So my question is, why are they pretending this is about performance?

Does this make any difference for the severance package and unemployment?

Depending on who the sales targets are, that’s completely reasonable. Big deals take time to negotiate, approve and close.

The tech company I work at has an average sales pipeline of over 12 months.