Lay off vs Pay cut

[Davidvictorson]

Companies may choose to layoff its employees for several reasons which include but not limited to cost-cutting, staff reduction, relocation, buyouts, and mergers. When you go the Google and search for layoffs you would find out it almost seems like a conspiracy among big companies to layoff its staff almost simultaneously.

• Meta, laid off 11,000 people
• Twitter, laid off about 3,700 people
• Stripe,  laid off about 1,000 people
• Salesforce, laid off hundreds of its employees last week
• Microsoft, laid off fewer than 1,000 jobs
• Zillow, Snap and Robinhood, laid off 300 of its employees late last month.

A pay cut is a decrease in an employee’s compensation. It could be a reduction in salary, benefits, hours and more — it’s not limited to monetary compensation. It can happen for a variety of reasons. For example, a company might be trying to avoid layoffs and/or save money during a tumultuous period, with the intention of returning salaries to normal once the threat is over.

Let's suppose your boss called you into his/her office and explained the company's situation. He/she then gives you the option of getting laid off or taking a 50% pay cut. If you were to choose one of these options, what would it be and why?

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[Jody.Drummer]

Companies may choose to layoff its employees for several reasons which include but not limited to cost-cutting, staff reduction, relocation, buyouts, and mergers. When you go the Google and search for layoffs you would find out it almost seems like a conspiracy among big companies to layoff its staff almost simultaneously.

• Meta, laid off 11,000 people
• Twitter, laid off about 3,700 people
• Stripe,  laid off about 1,000 people
• Salesforce, laid off hundreds of its employees last week
• Microsoft, laid off fewer than 1,000 jobs
• Zillow, Snap and Robinhood, laid off 300 of its employees late last month.

A pay cut is a decrease in an employee’s compensation. It could be a reduction in salary, benefits, hours and more — it’s not limited to monetary compensation. It can happen for a variety of reasons. For example, a company might be trying to avoid layoffs and/or save money during a tumultuous period, with the intention of returning salaries to normal once the threat is over.

Let's suppose your boss called you into his/her office and explained the company's situation. He/she then gives you the option of getting laid off or taking a 50% pay cut. If you were to choose one of these options, what would it be and why?

Given that it would be very difficult to find another job during a recession, if I were in that position, I would choose to cut half of my salary for a period of time. Of course, with a clear agreement that does not harm either party in the future. I firmly believe that if there were no serious problems, the company would not have done that, and we as employees would understand very well the steps the company is taking why they are giving such a difficult choice. I think it's a wise move when the company offers us 2 options that involve us in deciding that, because very rarely we will come across such a thing. And even if I were the owner of that company, I would try the same to save the company as well as my employees.
Incidentally I have a story like this about a friend of mine who works in a company and it happened about 2 months ago. The story is, he was laid off by the company with the reason to improve the efficiency of the company and it was the initial stage to allow a reduction in the number of employees in the company. There was a coworker who happened to be still working there and he said if given the choice he would rather have his pay cut than quit his job. This I think will be on the minds of many people when they are in such a situation.

[mk4]

It's too much of a general question.

- Will I still be able to survive with a 50% pay cut?
- Is there any other job opportunity if I get laid off?
- Can I afford not having a job for a couple of months?

etc.

[Hydrogen]

Let's suppose your boss called you into his/her office and explained the company's situation. He/she then gives you the option of getting laid off or taking a 50% pay cut. If you were to choose one of these options, what would it be and why?

Most american tech corporations are located in silicon valley california. Taking a 50% pay cut is not an option for employees there. As the cost of living in those areas is so astronomically expensive most probably could not afford to pay their rent on 50% wages.

The most likely scenario is a massive exodus out of california as the only link holding tech employees to that state are severed. The vast majority of workers will likely migrate to another state, where they will try to re-establish a tech industry in a place with lower taxes and reduced regulation.

It is also possible that they will choose to migrate outside the USA as many have done recently. Mexico city for one is being inundated with migrants from america. As are many other regions.

Personally, I would probably want to move out of california and reside in another state. States like texas and florida are popular off them having no state income taxes. Being laid off would therefore be the better option.

[Die_empty]

Let's suppose your boss called you into his/her office and explained the company's situation. He/she then gives you the option of getting laid off or taking a 50% pay cut. If you were to choose one of these options, what would it be and why?

A pay cut would be beneficial both to the company and the employee. The company has spent a lot of money investing in the worker through training and other developmental programs. Sacking the worker would make them loose the worker and the money they have spent on the staff. Laying off also affects the goodwill and reputation of the company negatively. It gives the public the notion that the company is not well managed or might soon go bankrupt. Investors are also skeptical to invest in a firm that is sacking its staff. 

The worker can manage the pay cut until he gets a new job. It is even possible to cut ones expenses and still survive on a half salary. But an outright sack would totally destabilize the worker and his dependents. It could even lead to poverty, health issues or even death.
To your question OP;I would gladly choose a pay cut  .

[Sayeds56]

Companies may choose to layoff its employees for several reasons which include but not limited to cost-cutting, staff reduction, relocation, buyouts, and mergers. When you go the Google and search for layoffs you would find out it almost seems like a conspiracy among big companies to layoff its staff almost simultaneously.

• Meta, laid off 11,000 people
• Twitter, laid off about 3,700 people
• Stripe,  laid off about 1,000 people
• Salesforce, laid off hundreds of its employees last week
• Microsoft, laid off fewer than 1,000 jobs
• Zillow, Snap and Robinhood, laid off 300 of its employees late last month.

A pay cut is a decrease in an employee’s compensation. It could be a reduction in salary, benefits, hours and more — it’s not limited to monetary compensation. It can happen for a variety of reasons. For example, a company might be trying to avoid layoffs and/or save money during a tumultuous period, with the intention of returning salaries to normal once the threat is over.

Let's suppose your boss called you into his/her office and explained the company's situation. He/she then gives you the option of getting laid off or taking a 50% pay cut. If you were to choose one of these options, what would it be and why?

Accepting 50% pay cut is a better option because the economy is not in good shape , new jobs are not being created  & I don't have any other source of income to meet with my living expenses but at the same time will continue struggling to get a better job as well as take some time to learn new skills those can help to generate some extra income.

[Majestic-milf]

A 50% pay cut will be it for me, thank you very much. . In my country, asides from those who have a skill or two that can get them gainfully employed or which they can always fall back to when things go south, I think most would settle for a half pay because a half bread is better than none and a bird in hand is worth more than a thousand in the bush.

 The only setback to this is that one would have to cut back in excesses and that can't be a problem since humans are adaptable in nature.

[lovesmayfamilis]

Accepting 50% pay cut is a better option because the economy is not in good shape , new jobs are not being created  & I don't have any other source of income to meet with my living expenses but at the same time will continue struggling to get a better job as well as take some time to learn new skills those can help to generate some extra income.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what the leadership of certain organizations is counting on. The choice is not great; either you stay and get paid half as much, or your boss hires another, already much worse specialist, who agrees to work under such conditions.
OP, you forgot about the Amazon company, which continues to replace people with robots. The most delicious reason is that the robots do not need to be paid, and they work 24 hours a day.
AI is gradually crowding out jobs, thereby further exacerbating the hope of finding work for those in need.

[hugeblack]

In some countries, hiring and dismissal is a slow process, and therefore the rate of retention of workers in their jobs may reach for several years, regardless of the financial situation of the institution, but in countries, expulsion is considered easy, including high employment rates, and vice versa.

In many cases, the vast majority will prefer to reduce the salary by  50%, but it will be a red flag to stay away from the platform.
Therefore, any salary cut means the departure of many employees who may be side doors and loopholes to destroy your organization.

[Gozie51]

Let's suppose your boss called you into his/her office and explained the company's situation. He/she then gives you the option of getting laid off or taking a 50% pay cut. If you were to choose one of these options, what would it be and why?

Taking a 50% pay cut is too much depending on your environment and bills to pay. If an employer offers such ludicrous pay cut it simply means the services of the employee is no more appreciated and they can only manage you. This is why you need to up your game and get better with knowledge on what you are doing so that you are relevant always. Savings and diversification is good and in such case you can fall back on what other options you have because from 100% to 50% is going to look like nothing in your finance.

OP, you forgot about the Amazon company, which continues to replace people with robots. The most delicious reason is that the robots do not need to be paid, and they work 24 hours a day.
AI is gradually crowding out jobs, thereby further exacerbating the hope of finding work for those in need.

Replacing human labour with robots is not however a total profit for the employer. Somehow the robots get to be maintained and I believe the cost of maintenance of the robots has to be taken cognizance of like wear and tears. Some part of the robots can totally be removed and replaced with a new one and that is also running cost. It is not a total win using robot.

[Sayeds56]

A 50% pay cut will be it for me, thank you very much. . In my country, asides from those who have a skill or two that can get them gainfully employed or which they can always fall back to when things go south, I think most would settle for a half pay because a half bread is better than none and a bird in hand is worth more than a thousand in the bush.

 The only setback to this is that one would have to cut back in excesses and that can't be a problem since humans are adaptable in nature.

Losing job or pay cut is not such a big issue, we can manage to cope with it easily, we lose jobs many times during the life & find another one in, such problems come in life but we overcome them with positive attitude.

Humans have history to survive in disastrous situations either it is  natural or man made. Humans have adaptable nature because unlike other creature they have the flexibility to eat many variety of foods, learn from others and live in different environments.  

https://brilliantio.com/why-are-humans-so-good-at-adapting/

[kro55]

Let's suppose your boss called you into his/her office and explained the company's situation. He/she then gives you the option of getting laid off or taking a 50% pay cut. If you were to choose one of these options, what would it be and why?

A pay cut would be beneficial both to the company and the employee. The company has spent a lot of money investing in the worker through training and other developmental programs. Sacking the worker would make them loose the worker and the money they have spent on the staff. Laying off also affects the goodwill and reputation of the company negatively. It gives the public the notion that the company is not well managed or might soon go bankrupt. Investors are also skeptical to invest in a firm that is sacking its staff. 

The worker can manage the pay cut until he gets a new job. It is even possible to cut ones expenses and still survive on a half salary. But an outright sack would totally destabilize the worker and his dependents. It could even lead to poverty, health issues or even death.
To your question OP;I would gladly choose a pay cut  .

If I were an employee I would of course choose to take a pay cut rather than quit but for the company a layoff is so much better than a pay cut. If you take a pay cut, you won't be able to save by layoffs because there are so many other day-to-day expenses that the company has to pay, not just the employee's wages, like energy costs, meals, insurance... a lot of things.

Sure, layoffs are undesirable in any company, but given the current situation, it's a must. Instead of firing a few people, continuing to hold out can lead to the bankruptcy of the entire company and have more serious consequences.

[lienfaye]

Let's suppose your boss called you into his/her office and explained the company's situation. He/she then gives you the option of getting laid off or taking a 50% pay cut. If you were to choose one of these options, what would it be and why?

I will choose the 50% pay cut. Nowadays many companies are laying off their employees making it hard to find a new job specially if you're not a degree holder or your skills are not indemand.

So instead of choosing to be laid off, I'll be wise and choose to stay. Atleast I still have an income to rely on despite of the pay cut, this way I don't have to worry on where to get the budget for our monthly expenses. And then I'll start to find another source of income or start to look for other companies with vacant position that I can apply on and has a better compensation compared to my current job.

[BigBos]

Companies may choose to layoff its employees for several reasons which include but not limited to cost-cutting, staff reduction, relocation, buyouts, and mergers. When you go the Google and search for layoffs you would find out it almost seems like a conspiracy among big companies to layoff its staff almost simultaneously.

• Meta, laid off 11,000 people
• Twitter, laid off about 3,700 people
• Stripe,  laid off about 1,000 people
• Salesforce, laid off hundreds of its employees last week
• Microsoft, laid off fewer than 1,000 jobs
• Zillow, Snap and Robinhood, laid off 300 of its employees late last month.

A pay cut is a decrease in an employee’s compensation. It could be a reduction in salary, benefits, hours and more — it’s not limited to monetary compensation. It can happen for a variety of reasons. For example, a company might be trying to avoid layoffs and/or save money during a tumultuous period, with the intention of returning salaries to normal once the threat is over.

Let's suppose your boss called you into his/her office and explained the company's situation. He/she then gives you the option of getting laid off or taking a 50% pay cut. If you were to choose one of these options, what would it be and why?

It's a dilemma for me to choose between the two.
If I choose to be laid off, it will be very difficult for me because at times like these there are rarely job vacancies, even opening a business is not necessarily successful, especially for me who is used to depending on salary. at the end of the month.

If I choose a 50% pay cut it will be difficult for me to make ends meet, while my 8 hours/day job will be very tiring and not worth the salary I get.
For me, the second option is better and it seems I have to negotiate the percentage of salary and timeframe to be discussed more deeply so that no one feels disadvantaged either the company or personally.

[eightdots]

If we cannot limit the uncertainties, we cannot answer the question asked. The person evaluates these items and makes his decision accordingly. He looks at his expectations, looks at his own economy, how long he can live without a salary, etc. Therefore, answering this direct question creates great uncertainty. To answer though, if my own economy isn't enough until I get a job, I'll accept a 50% salary. I would start looking for a different job while continuing my job.

[davis196]

Agreeing to a 50% pay cut is not an option for me. Any employer, who offers such 50% pay cut is simply insulting the employees.
I would most likely quit voluntarily, if the employer offers me a 50% pay cut.
From a corporate point of view, laying off the employees is a better solution than cutting the salaries by 50%. The corporation cuts a bigger chunk of it's costs and having less employees means less bureaucracy and less issues. What if the corporation doesn't have enough work to keep the workforce at 50% salaries? Keeping a bunch of inactive workers at lower salaries is a big cost, which cannot be handled in times of recession, when the corporate revenue is going down. "Profit is king" for the big corporations. Not many big companies would choose to sacrifice their decreasing profits in order to keep a big part of the employees.

[Frankolala]

I will consider a pay cut if it is worth it mean while i will also be searching for a better offer  but if it doesn't worth it I will leave the job to go look for another job, its not going to be easy to get a job it might just be an opportunity for me go get a Bette job .

In my place my friend works in a Setraco construction company there was a period when the company was short of contracts and couldn't meet up to workers payment what they did was that the unskilled workers that are not really contributing to daily activities were laid off while the other unskilled and skilled workers that their services will still be needed was place under redundancy because the company knows that more contracts will come in future that this workers will be needed. It is unfair to just lay off a worker without compensation.

[stompix]

Let's suppose your boss called you into his/her office and explained the company's situation. He/she then gives you the option of getting laid off or taking a 50% pay cut. If you were to choose one of these options, what would it be and why?

That would be an impossible case in the above-mentioned situation.
Amazon, for example, is planning on cutting full departments and postponing developments in a lot of their programs so for them that project is losing money, paying somebody even half or even doing it for free and it's still a failure.Another thing to note here is that Amazon is firing 10 000 workers after it hied 55 000 last year and it's not planning to stop hiring in its warehouses for the holidays still looking at 150 000.

So the thing is not that the company can't afford to pay you, your job and what you were doing there is no longer needed as it's a money pit!

As for the question, it all depends on what's the amount and what can you do with half of it.
Am I making  30k a month I'm down at 15k but my job is as easy as it can be, I will take it!
I'm making 3k a month and I'm supposed to live on 1500 while McDoandls is paying 2500, you can guess the answer.

Replacing human labour with robots is not however a total profit for the employer. Somehow the robots get to be maintained and I believe the cost of maintenance of the robots has to be taken cognizance of like wear and tears. Some part of the robots can totally be removed and replaced with a new one and that is also running cost. It is not a total win using robot.

Tell that to foxconn
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/1949918/rise-robots-60000-workers-culled-just-one-factory-chinas
Apart from the initial cost, there is little to no drawback right now against a human worker, the only real advantage longterm a human has is that it can be trained easily to do a different job for the same company while a welding robot can't be sent to packing for example.
This is like self-checkouts, everyone hates them but everyone rushes to them when they see what line is at the cashier lines.

[crwth]

That kind of situation would not be an ideal one knowing that it’s going to be for a change in situation. We are all going to be in a hard spot and getting paid half would mean that I’m undervalued in the current market. I would choose a different company that can afford me knowing that it’s a scarcity job. So it depends on what job you have and how it’s going to be strategic with the job market.

For those jobs that are easy to be replaced, I think it’s really best to study on something that is on demand and possibly upgrade your skills so that you are going to be hard to be replaced.

[DaveF]

Assuming this is a US based question I would take the lay off. October was the worst month so far this year as far as I can see in terms of the economy adding jobs and it was still over 250,000. Big Tech is laying off people. There are still a lot of places hiring like crazy.

Obviously, a lot depends on your skill set, but a good general programmer or manager at this point can get fired before breakfast and be working by lunch.

Having a more specialized skill set may make the job search more difficult but there are jobs out there.

I discussed it a while ago somewhere here, but I know someone who worked for Gemini that got laid off earlier in the year. Took her severance package, goofed around / relaxed for a bit, and then got a job in under a couple of weeks once she looked. Others didn't even take that long. All while the fear mongers were screaming 'the sky is falling'

Even low skilled retail / service places have signs out. Apply today - work tomorrow.

-Dave