December 2022 Layoffs, Recession and Severance Tips

Hey, it’s Mark here and welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide where I tell you as always, what your employer does definitely not want you to know about and a lot more. Hey, it’s Mark and our episode today is December 22, layoffs, recession and severance tips if you got recently Scrooged in December, you are not alone. companies engaged in more terminations in December in January than in any other time during the year. According to a Wall Street Journal article entitled, why companies do layoffs around Christmas. Many companies have been gut punching employees such as PepsiCo, Amazon, Salesforce Mehta, Ford, Ford Motor, Twitter, protocol, HP, Cisco, Microsoft, and recently, Goldman Sachs just announced plans to layoff 1000s and cut bonuses. Ouch. According to the website, layoffs dot FYI. 979 tech companies have laid off roughly 151,000 employees in 2020 22 alone in 89 companies laid off employees in December alone. If you want to get real time data, go to layoff.com or the lay off.com. For discussion boards about every company. I found it pretty interesting myself and I went there. Are we there yet? I mean, the recession, it sure feels like it. But the Federal Reserve disagrees for now. Chairman Powell said this week, I don’t think we would qualify as a recession because you’ve got positive growth and quote, in October 2022, the Conference Board predicted a 96% likelihood of a recession in the US with the next within the next 12 months in a recession starting before the end of 2022. Well, we’re there. It’s 2000 December 2022. And I’m calling it a recession. From the onslaught of layoffs and the number of calls to our offices that appears they were correct. For comparison purposes, the Conference Board predicted the 2020 recession with the same 96% likelihood. That’s scary. I’ve been practicing employment law my entire career since 1997. And I can smell an economic downturn and on the horizon. Layoffs can be an economic lead indicator, and that is what our firm is seeing right now. I have represented employees through the.com bust of 2001. The 2008 great recession. And now we are handling clients given severance packages from the major firms my just mentioned, but also small to midsize companies. That’s throughout the country. Let’s call this the Scrooge recession because no one else wants to if you haven’t, unfortunately been laid off in this new recession, as I predicted back in July of 2022, with an article captioned what’s in your sevens negotiation plan when the recession hits? And how do you handle the severance agreements when you have been given? As I previously stated, you’re not required to tell the employer you have an employment lawyer. I actually suggest you don’t and keep the company wondering if you do while at the same time you continue to negotiate directly with the company. You can hint you have an employment attorney in the background, whatever creative way you can. There’s no law basically saying you have to tell your employee of an attorney as a holiday gift to the recently departed severed. I’ve done all the homework for you in place all the information you need in our blog posts and the show notes and this podcast. Enjoy the freemium. I mean, when you I mean when I say you can do your own severance negotiation without an employment attorney bluffing your way, faking until you make it as an attorney and colleague of mine used to say. Recently, I was at the store and bumped into an old client. He announced that he was recently laid off and I suggested he bluff his employer by intimating that he had an implemented attorney like myself in the background. The former client was familiar with the notarized EEOC affidavit format he had used before, which set forth a caption of him versus the employer or Davey versus Goliath, you can use your imagination. The Affidavit laid out age discrimination facts as my friend was familiar with this type of claim having been fired for age discrimination previously, he was 52 at the time. Recently, I got a email email out of the blue and my friend said the tactic worked and he received 10 times of what the employer originally offered, which was just only a few weeks of severance pay. So it is an important tactic to use and you don’t want to leave money on the table. So I suggest you make the attempt. Dig into the information I’ve given you. On the various blog articles and podcasts. Either it’s going to be a goodwill negotiation where you’re going to list all of the top thing 10 things you’ve done to make the company money or, and by the way, when you do that, you’re going to get an answer of this is all we are going to offer you and nothing more typically, employers don’t really give you an offer, or increase the demand or the amount, their severance, unless you have something of leverage to give them which is really the second part of the type of negotiation you want to try is simply, you know, what are the facts, you can read the facts, just like anybody else, you don’t need to be a lawyer to do that. And you can look at whether there’s a possibility of inference of discrimination of some sort, whether it be sexual orientation, age, religion, disability, complaining about people who have been discriminated, including yourself, which is a retaliation claim, and try to lay out the facts, as I’ve in all the information I’ve given you to paint the picture in an affidavit that you have a claim. So merely the use of the caption of the affidavit, you know, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and then you versus your employer with a date and put the EEOC number and you leave it blank, because you don’t haven’t filed it yet. And you put the caption of you know, Bob Jones, he says, do solemnly swear and tell us the truth under penalty of perjury, and you just identify all the facts in chronological order. And then you put a notarization at the very bottom of it. Be signed before a notary and submitted to your employer, they’re gonna have the impression that you have an attorney in the background. And you’re gonna say, Well, I don’t have to tell you that your employers gonna say, well, we’re not going to make a counteroffer, unless you tell us well, fine, I’ll just go file my affidavit, what do you want to do? I’m just giving you an opportunity right now. So you can literally do the negotiation yourself. And why am I saying all this, I mean, I’m an employment lawyer make money doing this. But my point actually is a much larger, grander picture of what I want to have happen is, I’m trying to give you information to equal the negotiation position with your employer. And if you do this, and many more people do this, employers can begin to feel that they don’t have the upper hand on you, which is the point I’ve been trying to make. And all these three seasons of this podcast and all the articles ever write, we need to really change the dynamic of the employers position. Yes, they can fire you. But if you have facts to support a claim, well then give it a shot. And you don’t need to hire a high priced lawyer and pay a lot of money to do it. I’m trying to show you, you can actually do it. And you may be able to get a higher amount of money from your employer, which really just goes to pay for your expenses until you land somewhere else. The scary part of all this is that the recession we’re about the wall, I think we’re in right now. But what they think the doomsayers say that to the recessions can actually pretty, pretty dire, and gonna last for a very long time. So that, you know, immediately you think about, well, I need a lot of money to survive, that I may not get a job right away. And the other hand of this, you may say, well, people are getting jobs all the time, you know, we had the great resignation, quiet quitting, and all this things that have happened, people believe that they still can get jobs very quickly. But I think that we all now know that with all the layoffs have happened, especially in the tech sector, things have shifted backwards, in favor of the employers. So are we going back to the same old same old with employers, allowing them to tell us what they want to do with us? You know, we just follow what they say in all now I’ve been trying to rattle your cage here. For years, since I know you can do something, I’m trying to give you an opportunity here, at least in the severance negotiation point to actually do something, you know, make a change herself and let the employer know, it does work. People do this all the time. It’s just that you don’t hear about it, because when they sign the agreement, there’s a confidentiality and not going to really want to tell you about what they did, because they’re going to risk, you know, breaching the agreement and giving them money back. So I’m just laying quietly out there, saying, You really need to give it a shot, challenge your employer, learn about it. All the information is there, all the freemium you want is right on my website. Just spend the time look at it. And I’ll continue to produce more of it. So if you’re unfortunately laid off during this holiday season, I really do feel bad for you and but you know, there’s a bright horizon here you can possibly negotiate your increased severance package and what they offered you. So give it a shot, and then we’ll plan for the new year. Now continue to do these episodes for you and continue to put other freemium to give you a shot to take a shot at your employer. Anyway, have a great holiday. I’ll talk to you soon