I was in my 30s with 2 kids when I was layed off (“No, made redundant!”), the day my wife returned to work from maternity leave. It wasn’t fun, the 3 months severance pay did help to ease the anxiousness a bit.
I've been lucky to work for a huge company which hasn't laid off anybody in Germany since 1949. It still is the case , unless you really deserve getting fired...I was in my 30s with 2 kids when I was layed off (“No, made redundant!”), the day my wife returned to work from maternity leave. It wasn’t fun, the 3 months severance pay did help to ease the anxiousness a bit.
But I found a new job within a week and used the remaining severance pay to buy an EOS RP and EF100L
At my father’s last job, they heavily hinted at mass layoffs and tried enticing people with slightly-more-generous-than-legally-requiered severance packages. With that and a few months of unemployment compensation he could make it his retirement age, so he was lucky in that regard.
I don’t think he would’ve found another job as a database administrator, maybe he’d luck out and stumble upon a COBOL job opening.
I read through the “at will” propaganda at work recently and the most generous way to describe that is: Your company can screw you at any time, but you also have the option and privilege of screwing yourself!
I very much doubt a US company will do the right thing for the near-retirement people.
Layoffs are pretty common in biopharma, at least in the US (less so in Swiss pharma, for example). Some large US pharma ‘reorganize’ every couple of years. Biotech funding cycles often mean small companies separate groups of people or close entirely.I was in my 30s with 2 kids when I was layed off (“No, made redundant!”), the day my wife returned to work from maternity leave. It wasn’t fun, the 3 months severance pay did help to ease the anxiousness a bit.
But I found a new job within a week and used the remaining severance pay to buy an EOS RP and EF100L
I witnessed something similar, when the section of a large consulting firm I was with at the time sacked 50% of their staff (GFC era), not including me, but including one guy who was the only living human being who knew how to run the monthly tax software of a particular banking client. They had to grovel to the guy to get him to consult for a few months (at double pay in addition to his redundancy pay) until we could train up someone else. I won't say it was actually 'funny' in all the circumstances - but there was some rare Orporate Karma going on.
arstechnica.com
In the Uk, this is illegal and called age related discrimination. Canon would be sued just by admitting this policy.
…and they have accumulated raises and accrued vacation time… Older people are also less likely to buy into the company BS and more likely to use the insurance. The whole idea is to have a building full of entry level employees. There’s even a term for it: churn. It’s as low and slimy as it gets.
Hopefully these former Canon employees will get some good advice like you about finding another job.
