Workers laid-off during pandemic have a message for tech giants: We’ll never come back

For some workers, it doesn’t matter how grim the economy is, or how thankless their current job. If they were laid off, especially during pandemic, they would never dream of coming back to the place that dropped them.

Tech companies have laid off nearly 245,000 workers this year alone, as per tracker Layoffs,fyi. Silicon Valley’s giants like Meta and Salesforce have led the pack, each culling thousands of jobs each time.

But workers weren’t losers for long. Since the job market is getting back on track, the companies are out looking for talent, and some are searching for the very kinds that they just cut. The real question is what will happen if those workers decide on not to return?

A recent poll carried out by Glassdoor showed that over half (58%) of 6,000 employees said that they would never return to a company who laid them off. Men were slightly more likely to consider to boomeranging than women, and old workers were open minded than younger ones.

Salesforce, which laid off around 10% of its workforce earlier this year, is encouraging those people to apply to fill its 3,000 plus open vacancies.

As for Meta, after laying off about a quarter of its workforce, it has constructed a specialty “alumni portal” for boomerangs looking to cut the line.