comment #1

KeithNYC says ...

I work as a lawyer for a huge insurance company that made record profits this year. They just fired 6 employees yesterday as well as nationwide layoffs. Since the employees can stay for 2 weeks their last day is the Friday before Christmas. Bnefits and vacation days accrue in the new year so employers want to save the money. It's really pathetic. Corporate America can be vicious and can basically do whatever they want.

comment #2

D.Z. says ...

I'm more pissed off when they have help wanted signs posted for over a year, but refuse to actually look at applications or hire new people, just because it's cheaper.

comment #3

TKC says ...

I agree that it sucks, with one small quibble: It seems to me that, if you're laying people off for budgetary reasons, it would be far worse to go ahead with the holiday party than to cancel it -- the former, to me, is far more of an insult-to-injury situation. "Hey, sorry, we've got no room in our budget for you. But feel free to come to the holiday party, where we've got a buffet, a DJ and an open bar."

comment #4

christian says ...

it is pretty fucking cold. i'm sure outsourcing will make things even better...

comment #5

nemo says ...

I got laid off the week before Christmas back in 1990. Sixteen years later, and I still haven't forgotten what it felt like going home that day.

comment #6

Rich S. says ...

Didn't Jeffrey recently post a piece about the "false sentimentality" and general gluttony of Thanksgiving? While I wholeheartedly agree that pre-Christmas layoffs are extraordinarily heartless, I wonder why Jeffrey should care, when for him Christmas is likely just like any other day of the year. (Worse, in fact, because there's too much football and Peter Billigsley on)

comment #7

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Rich S. -- Every day is like any other for me, yes...no holidays, no days off....a continuous stream and thank fortune for that. But like Nemo says, I've been on many past payrolls and I vividly remember that kicked-hard-in-the-gut feeling I had after getting fired just before the holidays.

comment #8

AlexStroup says ...

Would it be less heartless if it turns out that those fired weren't Christian?

For me, Christmas is just another day of the year so it really wouldn't make much difference if it happened in December or in June.

But yeah, it is for tax and financials reporting reasons. Companies that have shifted fiscal years do their layoffs right before the end of those. Just for publicity reasons if I were running a major corporation I'd shift my fiscal year by a quarter. Layoffs in March or September get much less press than layoffs in December.

comment #9

nemo says ...

Some more comments about getting the ax right before Christmas back in 1990. Whether you're a Christian or not, whether you take Christmas seriously as a holiday or not, there is no way in the United States that you can ignore Christmas. There's the constant drumbeat of family, sentimentality, spending money, and consumption from the media, from your family, from your co-workers, from everyone you know or come in contact with. You can't escape it, even if you're a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or atheist.

And because nearly all American workplaces give several days of holiday around Christmas and the New Year, and because most companies expect their operations to wind down in a serious way during the last couple of weeks of the year, it is a time when nearly everyone plans family get-togethers and vacations. Again, it's the same even if you're a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or atheist.

My wife, a practicing attorney, learned that you don't plan to accomplish anything during the last 3 weeks of the year. Judges and other attorneys may pretend like they're going to be working during that time, but they're all lying. You can't coordinate anything with them.

When I got laid off, I could see it coming a couple of months in advance, so thank god I didn't do anything as dumb as buying a plane ticket to visit my parents. Who wants to waste all that money to go hear a lot of useless and patronizing job-seeking advice from some retired people who don't know anything about your industry and who haven't been in the job market in several decades?

The entire group of 8 people I worked in got canned at the same time, except for the guy at the top. He had 10 years of seniority and was politically connected in the organization, so they offered him a sideways transfer (really a bit of a demotion).

The funny part to me was that the reason I could see the ax coming months in advance was because of how badly this guy at the top had been mismanaging our efforts for the previous year.

From a business POV, it was the right decision to disband our group. But it was completely crazy to keep the one guy who was most responsible for getting the rest of us canned. The company would have been smarter to can our group leader, keep the rest of us, install someone new at the top, and redefine our mission.

Looking back, I was lucky to get pushed out of there. It eventually led to a better job, which led to an even better job, which I'm still in.

But since I became jobless in the middle of the Bush Senior recession, it also caused me to run through all my savings at the time and to live on my credit cards, which took me a couple years to pay off. The lousy temporary jobs I scored weren't enough to pay rent, food, gas, and insurance. As soon as I got a good permanent job I took out a much lower interest loan to pay off the credit cards, but that loan took years to pay.

And yes, it was a bigger kick in the gut because it happened just before Christmas, even though I already kind of hated Christmas.