Trajan88 said:

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I am 60.

Worked for 23 years at my last co.

.I was canned in January due to a "reorganization" ... for all that dedicated work since 2002 I received 8 weeks severance pay and 8 weeks of healthcare. I asked for 1 week for ea. year of service. They would not acknowledge my correspondence until i signed off on their std. separation offer.

I planned on staying w/ themat co. until I hit 65 years of age.

Since early Feb., I have received only 3 hits with my resume/applications (I am sure all the others I have applied, those co's auto system sees my graduation date at "1989" ... and immediately flushes me).

I may be involuntarily "retired" ... but thankfully I am financially prepared.

My $0.02: screw private equity... they are the suck.

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In the late 1990s my employer offered lucrative golden handshakes based on years with the company. One of my coworkers got $ 94,000 and another got $ 114,000 which was a lot of money at that time. They were consider replaceable. I was not offered the same opportunity because I was not considered expendable and there was no one in the local organization qualified to replace me. So much for being a conscientious and innovative employee doing a great job tor the company. I later retired in 2000 at age 65 with a good company pension so I was not completely ignored.

Ya, if you've worked at Microsoft for 20 years, you should have a very nice nest egg. Maybe not the time to ride off into the sunset, but personally I'd be fine getting the chance to get a nice buyout & the freedom to consider what's next. Many don't get that, they get dropped on their ass with little time to think or plan. Voluntary packages are completely different psychologically, the individual is treated with respect and usually gets to leave with dignity.

malibucharles said:

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Trajan88 said:

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I am 60.

Worked for 23 years at my last co.

.I was canned in January due to a "reorganization" ... for all that dedicated work since 2002 I received 8 weeks severance pay and 8 weeks of healthcare. I asked for 1 week for ea. year of service. They would not acknowledge my correspondence until i signed off on their std. separation offer.

I planned on staying w/ themat co. until I hit 65 years of age.

Since early Feb., I have received only 3 hits with my resume/applications (I am sure all the others I have applied, those co's auto system sees my graduation date at "1989" ... and immediately flushes me).

I may be involuntarily "retired" ... but thankfully I am financially prepared.

My $0.02: screw private equity... they are the suck.

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In the late 1990s my employer offered lucrative golden handshakes based on years with the company. One of my coworkers got $ 94,000 and another got $ 114,000 which was a lot of money at that time. They were consider replaceable. I was not offered the same opportunity because I was not considered expendable and there was no one in the local organization qualified to replace me. So much for being a conscientious and innovative employee doing a great job tor the company. I later retired in 2000 at age 65 with a good company pension so I was not completely ignored.

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so you are 91?!?!

good on you, man!

harge57 said:

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aggie93 said:

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Over_ed said:

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Microsoft has had really good profits over the past 5 years (profits up ~100%) -- $101B 2025.

https://www.newsmax.com/finance/streettalk/microsoft-buyout-stock/2026/04/23/id/1253955/

Despite these profits, MS announced today it is cutting staff with buyouts. Combination of focus on younger staff as AI rolls out as well as reducing expenses to help pay for AI infrastructure.

Voluntary cuts are focused on older workers--Age plus Microsoft years >= 70. About 7% of employees are eligible.

I generally hate MS with a passion many would reserve for the IRS during tax season. Or Clippy, IE, Windows 8, and now Windows 11/copilot to name a few.

But this "golden handshake" is exactly the way letting go of employees should be handled by profitable corporations looking to reduce staff, imo.

2 words I have difficulty typing - "Good Microsoft"

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That's all good if you have a retirement plan in place but the rule you are talking about is going to hit a lot of folks in their 50's who are going to have a rougher time finding a new job as companies want to hire younger people. It's "voluntary" which is fine but if I was at MS and in the "eligible" category I'd be nervous as hell if I wasn't sitting on a nice retirement nest egg already. I also expect they will be lucky not to get sued over this if they aren't very careful.

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If someone has been at MSFT long enough to meet this rule of 70 and not sitting on a huge nest egg they did something seriously wrong.

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My cousin is a really smart dude. Graduated from Rice with an EE degree about 1985 and went to work at IBM. He met his wife at IBM (talk about a nerdy wedding), and they lived in the same North Austin house for the last 35 years. The last of their three kids just graduated from A&M (all three kids are Aggies. something I don't let his Rice diploma holding ass forget). He just retired from Big Blue after about 40 years of service. I am sure his retirement is pretty solid.

I am fortunate as I've already qualified for the pension and the benefit package requires payment of a week for every year of service in the case of layoffs. For me that's a bit over five months. We have had continuous layoffs and offshoring for the past 15 years (big oil) and in every case the packages were three weeks for every year. Now the scuttlebutt is that this current round will be the last of these three-week packages. (But then again, I've heard that for every round of layoffs for at least the past five years). I'm fairly certain that I'll be captured at the next round which we figure will be next year, and I'm praying that the past practice will continue. But I am curious how it will play out as I know several hot heads who are going around saying that they will litigate if the past practice of 3-week page is discontinued (i.e. age discrimination suits).

CampSkunk said:

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I am fortunate as I've already qualified for the pension and the benefit package requires payment of a week for every year of service in the case of layoffs. For me that's a bit over five months. We have had continuous layoffs and offshoring for the past 15 years (big oil) and in every case the packages were three weeks for every year. Now the scuttlebutt is that this current round will be the last of these three-week packages. (But then again, I've heard that for every round of layoffs for at least the past five years). I'm fairly certain that I'll be captured at the next round which we figure will be next year, and I'm praying that the past practice will continue. But I am curious how it will play out as I know several hot heads who are going around saying that they will litigate if the past practice of 3-week page is discontinued (i.e. age discrimination suits).

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I doubt that would have any merit whatsoever.

reineraggie09 said:

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MouthBQ98 said:

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No management thinks beyond 1-3 years at most. They aren't concerned with the long term health of the company because short term numbers are what swings stock valuation day to day and quarter to quarter, and that's how they are compensated. They ware worried about only immediate numbers for the next few financial statements, and longer term problems are a much lower priority that will be dealt h with only as they become short term. This means labor expense to make numbers that investors require is a major consideration.

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I firmly believe the best run companies in America are privately held. And I don't mean by private equity firms.

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There are always exceptions. I worked for a private company early in my career that was poorly run and always struggled. I left after five years. Spent some time on the government side. I now work for an employee-owned company, and it runs pretty well. Best place I have ever worked.

javajaws said:

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I'm about to get laid off - it'll most likely happen next month (I've been forewarned).

What's bizarre to me though is that employers rarely offer to keep and "demote" older employees - lowering their salary along with titles, etc as an alternative to being laid off. Many people in their 50s (myself included) would easily take a much lower salary for a few years to get us closer to retirement just so we can have healthcare and some sort of income that isn't minimum wage without eating into our savings too early. But big corps don't want any part of that it seems. Its just out with the old, in with the new (and cheap). I find this odd because rarely are these layoffs performance related, but rather almost always about $$.

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I have to believe that is because corporations are very afraid of internal threats,

and "quiet quitting" which especially when you have a disgruntled employee who is getting paid less.

every company I have worked for when they fire someone or cut them- has them led out that same day and usually within an hour.

Easy to tell who here has and has not run a business.

Yeah, I've been kind of rolling my eyes when I hear that talk, but then again, I expect the company would offer a compromise in order to avoid the litigation.

The challenge with these voluntary programs is that they are not strategic. You can lose good people you need in areas and are left with excess crap in others. I think being strategic and offering healthy severance and outplacement services generally leads to the best outcomes

Hot heads serve a purpose for reasonable EEs though. Corps can make risk-averse decisions and often ignore the true cost of the 1 time writeoff.

reineraggie09 said:

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This idea that corporate jobs are "safe" has always been and always will be ridiculous. Being an entrepreneur is much safer. 1) you generally have a multitude of bosses (clients) if one fires you there are others. (Disversification). 2) you have control and, for now, the freedom to adjust your business to take advantage of the market.

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This completely depends on if you survive the initial years of establishing your business which has high failure rates.

If you joined one after it had established itself, then I can see how you would think this. If you were on the ground floor of it, totally different ballgame. I was a founding employee of a startup. We had no customers. We then had one customer for a year before we got another one.

That one customer ran us f'ing ragged because they could because we had no diversification and they were 100% of our revenue. I also got paid less and worked a **** load more than I ever worked in my high flying corporate gig because the backend upside of the startup is why you do it. Or you just want a challenge.

LMCane said:

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Trajan88 said:

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I am 60.

Worked for 23 years at my last co.

.I was canned in January due to a "reorganization" ... for all that dedicated work since 2002 I received 8 weeks severance pay and 8 weeks of healthcare. I asked for 1 week for ea. year of service. They would not acknowledge my correspondence until i signed off on their std. separation offer.

I planned on staying w/ themat co. until I hit 65 years of age.

Since early Feb., I have received only 3 hits with my resume/applications (I am sure all the others I have applied, those co's auto system sees my graduation date at "1989" ... and immediately flushes me).

I may be involuntarily "retired" ... but thankfully I am financially prepared.

My $0.02: screw private equity... they are the suck.

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I am 55 and voluntarily leaving my company after 6 full years and a 30 year legal career.

I didn't expect them to offer me anything.

I feel empathy for fellow human beings-

but what is the actual LEGAL and MORAL case that every employer has to pay 6 months of salary and benefits to all employees they are laying off?

in the history of america- if you lost your job in 1855 what happened to you?

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No moral obligation but there is a legal one. If they lay me off, I get the maximum severance in my contract as I have reached the required years of service. It'll be something like 6 months full pay. At this point I wouldn't be bothered at all. I could retire at 50 and find something to do with my time that gets me health care coverage and be perfectly content. That expense would be my only difficulty.

Healthcare after 50 is not only liable to companies, which in my view is a big reason why companies want older folkss out, they have some actuator on hand telling them what that cost/bomb will be. When your let go or early retired that cost is real, especially if you dont have a jib lined up. I was told by a HR high up that Healthcare cost is a huge force drivi g this let em go mentality.

I work for a Fortune 100 and one interesting development is that the 40+ white guy is now the hardest to fire (yay for us old white guys). The EEOC is really scrutinizing these. At least at larger companies, the health care cost really isn't a factor. I think it's more that 50someethings are very expensive after 30 years of a career, and if the work they are delivering is on par or only marginally more than what someone 20 years their junior can do, they are at risk. 30 years of raises, promotions, etc and unless they are an executive, they are frequently near the top end of their salary range for their level. At that point of your career, you are either a valued leader or a middle management/individual contributor type that is oftentimes replaceable by someone (a) cheaper and (b) one that can developed into that future leader. So you see that latter type have their role eliminated and the work shifted. There's pain but life moves on.

That said, we do offer 2 weeks of severance and full benefits for every 1 year of service - capped at 52 weeks, and outplacement resources. Back to my point on preferring that it be strategic vs voluntary, but helping ensure folks land on their feet as much as possible. The majority of 50somethings we let go are getting the full year of severance, and oftentimes it serves as a nice double-dip opportunity if someone is not ready to retire yet. Yes, it is harder at that age to find something, but something always seems to work out at some point for those that decide to aggressive look

Really happy to see the olds here exulting that they have enough money for retirement after their generation ruined the scenario for everyone else coming after them.

Stupid decision on getting rid of the older workers and focusing on younger people + AI.

Its the younger people that can be replaced by AI. Their training and experience is minimal. AI can replace them.

Its the instituional knowledge that AI can NOT replace.

This is how you know that it's not really about being smart and using AI where it fits best. It's a lay off to cut expenses and AI is the excuse.

Logos Stick said:

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Signel said:

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Microsoft doesn't care about anyone no matter how they try and project this. I know first hand they are straight up evil.

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Substitute any Corporation for Microsoft in your sentence. None of them give a *****

But that's okay by me. I trade my skills and time for their money.

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That is easy for you and me to say, but my kids won't have the opportunities we had. The future with these mega corporations is bleak, and I worry about the stability of the country as a result.

javajaws said:

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I'm about to get laid off - it'll most likely happen next month (I've been forewarned).

What's bizarre to me though is that employers rarely offer to keep and "demote" older employees - lowering their salary along with titles, etc as an alternative to being laid off. Many people in their 50s (myself included) would easily take a much lower salary for a few years to get us closer to retirement just so we can have healthcare and some sort of income that isn't minimum wage without eating into our savings too early. But big corps don't want any part of that it seems. Its just out with the old, in with the new (and cheap). I find this odd because rarely are these layoffs performance related, but rather almost always about $$.

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You are right. Which is why I think we won't survive as a society too far into the future. We have a short term thinking and think older people are a burden. Everyone gets older. We don't even rein in companies that do it. If we don't take care of our own people, how can we survive. No wonder the Indians are taking over large parts of Texas and Muslims the other parts because we sold out the country for a fistful of dollars.

It is shocking so many people here are so brainwashed and clueless about the real world. They read theoretical books or listen to some radio talk show idiot on free markets and think the world exactly follows those rules.

Start learning Chinese, Telegu and Arabic.

Allah O Akbar.

YouBet said:

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reineraggie09 said:

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This idea that corporate jobs are "safe" has always been and always will be ridiculous. Being an entrepreneur is much safer. 1) you generally have a multitude of bosses (clients) if one fires you there are others. (Disversification). 2) you have control and, for now, the freedom to adjust your business to take advantage of the market.

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This completely depends on if you survive the initial years of establishing your business which has high failure rates.

If you joined one after it had established itself, then I can see how you would think this. If you were on the ground floor of it, totally different ballgame. I was a founding employee of a startup. We had no customers. We then had one customer for a year before we got another one.

That one customer ran us f'ing ragged because they could because we had no diversification and they were 100% of our revenue. I also got paid less and worked a **** load more than I ever worked in my high flying corporate gig because the backend upside of the startup is why you do it. Or you just want a challenge.

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I see your point. I started my business out of my laundry room. I have control. If something isn't working I can fix it. If one customer is ruining you, get rid of them.

And if your business fails, you start another one. That's why being an entrepreneur in America will always have options.

infinity ag said:

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Really happy to see the olds here exulting that they have enough money for retirement after their generation ruined the scenario for everyone else coming after them.

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Go bite a weenie

infinity ag said:

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Really happy to see the olds here exulting that they have enough money for retirement after their generation ruined the scenario for everyone else coming after them.

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Is this you taking responsibility for your role in ruining it for the next generation? From your posting history, you claim to make more money from your retirement money than you do from your job.

Seems odd if you are simply projecting on folks you perceive as older and more morally corrupt than the "next generation".

Curious as to where you stand on the role folks in their 40s and 50s played and continue to play in this evil retirement wealth scenario.

I early retired from corporate and by doing so it allowed several people on my team to promote up and get healthy raises and more responsibility. So, I do not consider myself part of the problem that these olds have supposedly created. I worked my ass off for 25 years.

Burpelson said:

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Healthcare after 50 is not only liable to companies, which in my view is a big reason why companies want older folkss out, they have some actuator on hand telling them what that cost/bomb will be. When your let go or early retired that cost is real, especially if you dont have a jib lined up. I was told by a HR high up that Healthcare cost is a huge force drivi g this let em go mentality.

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When I first went into business and a client was starting a new business I always advised them to not offer health insurance. If the going rate was $250 a month (as an example) my advice was to have them tell the employee they were increasing their pay by $250, which was enough for them to get their own policy. Or they could get on their spouse's policy and pocket the extra money. With so many people working for schools, counties, prison system, cities, and other government jobs, that was a viable option. Long ago, in these types of government jobs, the cost of adding a spouse or even a family was not too bad

And given that many of their employees were young, benefits meant a lot less to them than a bigger paycheck. One thing is for sure, you can freeze salaries, if cash flow dictates the need in the future, but insurance costs will go up and up and up and often by a huge percentage. On the few occasions where they had to provide insurance for a key person to employ them, they would have that person bring their premium payment notice and reimburse them the cost, but not provide it for all the employees. Sort of like not everyone getting a company vehicle.

Insurance is a back breaker.

Some people just thrive on misery. They take no responsibility for the perceived negatives in life but then claim full responsibility for their successes. It's really a sad and unproductive way to approach life. Everyone who is in a perceived better lot than them must have only gotten there through nefarious means.