Company hiring restrictions after layoffs?

apac

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2003
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I work for a large company that has formally announced layoffs coming in the next couple months. The layoff is expected to be pretty substantial, a few thousand employees. My business unit is one of the few that is currently doing well so I do not expect to lose my job. In fact my team has recently had a lot of attrition which has left us very short staffed, and we are trying to hire replacements so we can keep up our current workload.

I was talking with my manager and he mentioned that we'd have trouble hiring after the company-wide layoffs go through. Some kind of federal/state provision that restricts the company from hiring externally for a duration of time after a layoff. This policy does make sense, but I can't find any info about how long that time frame would be. I thought my manager had said it fell under the terms of the WARN act but I searched and didn't find any part of the act that said "you cannot hire externally for X number of days after a mass layoff".

Anyone know how this works? The company is based out of California - you can probably guess which one - so I think we'd be subject to California law, as well as federal.
 

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
146
106
www.neftastic.com
Are you in an at-will state? If so, they can hire and fire at will.

The only exception would be if there's a union contract preventing that.
 

Gibson486

Lifer
Aug 9, 2000
18,378
1
0
never heard of that, but sounds understandable.

All i now is that a week after they laid me off, they posted my job up.
 

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
9
0
Are you in an at-will state? If so, they can hire and fire at will.

The only exception would be if there's a union contract preventing that.


Some states have employee credits and other issues that if you have a lay off you must follow certain guidelines. Don;t think the Fed has its hands in it.
 

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
9
0
never heard of that, but sounds understandable.

All i now is that a week after they laid me off, they posted my job up.


You work at IBM?

They do that all the time. We don;t need ya, then a week later your job opens again but now pays 20-40% less.
 

Gibson486

Lifer
Aug 9, 2000
18,378
1
0
You work at IBM?

They do that all the time. We don;t need ya, then a week later your job opens again but now pays 20-40% less.

I wish....

it was at a CDM type firm.

They laid me off because they said I was not a good fit. Yeah, it took them 3 years to tell me that.
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
65,271
13,538
146
I think it's state-by-state. I've been in a couple of states that required 30-90 days between layoffs and hiring for the same position.
It helps keep companies from fucking the state unemployment system. Why should a company lay off a worker, allow him to collect unemployment, then immediately rehire for the same position? Lay offs should be for reduction of force. If you need to refill that position, why not call back the laid-off worker?

THAT is why those laws are/were in effect.

In our union agreement, if the company fires a worker, he/she can contest the firing, have a formal grievance filed...which may mean arbitration...and back pay if he/she wins. However, if they lay you off...there's nothing that the union can do...even if they immediately rehire for the same position. The state MIGHT want to know why the change in employees happened...but it's unlikely.
 

apac

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2003
6,212
0
71
I think it's state-by-state. I've been in a couple of states that required 30-90 days between layoffs and hiring for the same position.
It helps keep companies from fucking the state unemployment system. Why should a company lay off a worker, allow him to collect unemployment, then immediately rehire for the same position? Lay offs should be for reduction of force. If you need to refill that position, why not call back the laid-off worker?

THAT is why those laws are/were in effect.

In our union agreement, if the company fires a worker, he/she can contest the firing, have a formal grievance filed...which may mean arbitration...and back pay if he/she wins. However, if they lay you off...there's nothing that the union can do...even if they immediately rehire for the same position. The state MIGHT want to know why the change in employees happened...but it's unlikely.

Depends on what a constitutes the same position vs a different position. I don't think the idea is to lay off people and then rehire those same positions. The plan as I understand it is to lay off people in unproductive business units and hire in productive BUs. The job itself might be similar but the position is certainly different.
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,236
1,722
126
I wish....

it was at a CDM type firm.

They laid me off because they said I was not a good fit. Yeah, it took them 3 years to tell me that.

That's not a layoff, that's a firing...

layoff is technically when they are eliminating the "position", thus the employee suffers
firing is when they eliminate the employee rather than the position...

layoff: factory closed.
firing: you aren't a good fit.
 

guyver01

Lifer
Sep 25, 2000
22,135
5
61
Is this in Canadia?

cuz the only thing i can find on a google search about a "law" preventing hiring after layoffis.. is Cana-duh
 

bobdole369

Diamond Member
Dec 15, 2004
4,504
2
0
They had some union stuff about this in the Rust Belt before I left, but no state law. I know in America's Wang they can fire you for any reason whatsoever, or no reason, provided the basis is not illegal (such as illegal discrimination or due to whistleblowing). They can lay everyone off and hire all new people the same day.
 

Gibson486

Lifer
Aug 9, 2000
18,378
1
0
That's not a layoff, that's a firing...

layoff is technically when they are eliminating the "position", thus the employee suffers
firing is when they eliminate the employee rather than the position...

layoff: factory closed.
firing: you aren't a good fit.

Call it what you want, but I got severance, so technically it's a layoff.

I actually got a notice about the job posting last week. Last week, they said it was for an engineer 3, but the description was a cut and paste of my old position (engineer 1). I just looked again today and they changed the whole job description to accurately reflect the desire for a engineer 3. I wonder how long it took them to find that mistake...
 

FoBoT

No Lifer
Apr 30, 2001
63,084
14
81
fobot.com

guyver01

Lifer
Sep 25, 2000
22,135
5
61
The WARN act most definitely does NOT prohibit companies from hiring after layoffs.

I was laid off in 2009 by a company covering their ass under the WARN act, and the day we were all laid off, HR was in the conference room next door doing hirings.
 

SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
14,228
4,469
136
There are no federal laws that would prevent your company from hiring for vacant positions after a layoff. There might be some local or state, but those are normally trivial to get around.
The more likely candidate is that the company has a internal rule to freeze hiring after a layoff to reorganize. Either way, don't be so sure that you are not on the chopping block. I've seen, and done it myself, managers layoff a underpreforming employee in a group that would otherwise be immune and move a more valued employee from an underpreforming group into the position.
 

SKORPI0

Lifer
Jan 18, 2000
18,463
2,397
136
I wish....

it was at a CDM type firm.

They laid me off because they said I was not a good fit. Yeah, it took them 3 years to tell me that.

Standard excuses these days and them hiring somebody for same work/less pay. This is to avoid paying any raise due you if you've reached the "pay limit" for your job. After a few years they repeat the cycle.
 

apac

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2003
6,212
0
71
There are no federal laws that would prevent your company from hiring for vacant positions after a layoff. There might be some local or state, but those are normally trivial to get around.
The more likely candidate is that the company has a internal rule to freeze hiring after a layoff to reorganize. Either way, don't be so sure that you are not on the chopping block. I've seen, and done it myself, managers layoff a underpreforming employee in a group that would otherwise be immune and move a more valued employee from an underpreforming group into the position.

I'm a top performer :). If we do get the axe, it's because we are a small remote site, and the team has recently shrunk to the point that we make an easy target. But, in one month we release a new product that we have been working on for 2.5 years and will generate a ton of revenue. Our (remaining) team constitutes most of the knowledge base for the product so I'd be pretty surprised if they opted to lay us off at this juncture.

That said, getting laid off would be awesome. Company has a 6 month salary/benefits severance policy. I'd work on my house all summer and start looking for jobs in the fall. Give me a big fat bonus to go find a new job, when this one is already looking rather grim? Yes please!

Anyway, based on feedback from this thread I'm assuming it's some sort of California thing. Or possibly a company policy, but I don't think so.
 

0roo0roo

No Lifer
Sep 21, 2002
64,795
84
91
if they need folks in a unit they should have hired before they fired, mass firing isn't exactly something done without planning, i'm guessing they'd rather do it this way, they got the excuse;)