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I worked at Yahoo in 2008 when they laid off thousands and yes every single person got a calendar invite and met in a meeting room 1:1 with a manager. It was difficult but they did it. Times definitely have changed.

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Wow, just the logistics of that is impressive. I feel like I would watch a 60-minute documentary on pulling that together because it no doubt took dozens or hundreds of people weeks of logistics to do that, and unlike almost any other major project, literally no one involved was happy about any part of it.

Doing unhappy work at Yahoo probably wasn't unusual in 2008

Did the people who got a calendar invite know that they were getting laid off in advance?

I worked at Yahoo some years later and the process was the same when I was there.

Yes, people generally put two and two together when there was a calendar invite with their manager and HR.

We were in a European office though, so layoffs aren't American-style "escorted from the office with immediate effect".

Not explicitly, but there were rumors a few days before. Also the signs were there: every single meeting room was booked, meeting rooms all had water & tissues, etc.

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