Most workers wouldn’t boomerang back to a job they’d already been fired from. SrdjanPav – Getty Images
For some workers, it doesn’t matter how dismal the economy is, how dismal the job market is, or how thankless their current job is. In the event of a layoff – especially during the pandemic – many workers would not even dream of returning to the place where they were laid off.
According to tracker Layoffs.fyi, tech companies have laid off nearly 245,000 workers this year alone, and Silicon Valley heavyweights like Meta and Salesforce have led the pack, cutting thousands of jobs each.
But the workers were not losers for long. Now, as the job market shifts again, companies are looking for talent, and some are looking for the very workers they just cut. The real question is what happens when these workers decide they don’t want her back?
Over half (58%) of the 6,000 professionals who responded to a recent Glassdoor survey said they would never return to a company that fired them. In the tech sector specifically, only 46% of workers said they would boomerang. Men thought about boomerang riding slightly more often than women, and older workers were more open-minded than younger ones.
“As the labor market has weakened over the last year, some regrets are inevitable,” Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at Glassdoor, told Fortune. Some sectors have begun “cautiously” increasing hiring as fears of a recession ease, but “companies’ reputations cast a long shadow.”
The legacy of the layoffs — and how they were carried out — could “come back to haunt companies when the labor market pendulum inevitably swings back,” Terrazas adds. “Former employees can be a company’s most loyal advocates, or they can be its harshest critics.” The outcome depends on the type of company.
Salesforce laid off about 10% of its workforce earlier this year, but now CEO Marc Benioff is encouraging those people to apply for its more than 3,000 open positions. “Our job is to grow the company and continue to deliver great margins,” Benioff said in September. “We know we have to hire thousands of people.” He hopes a large portion of those people will be boomerangs. Benioff admitted trying to lure workers back with an “alumni event where people who are employed at other companies say, ‘It’s OK, come back.’
As for Meta, after laying off about a quarter of its workforce, positions are open again, and the company has even set up a special “alumni portal” for boomerangs looking to break through.
Why boomeranging makes workers shudder
Leaving a job is difficult, especially if it is the employee’s wish. Eighty percent of employees who left their jobs during the so-called “Great Resignation” regret it. That would make boomeranging a little less conflictual for them – and explains why boomeranging is on the rise across the board. But for workers who had no say in the matter, it is undoubtedly a difficult decision with few precedents.
On Blind, an anonymous employee forum, a Stripe employee recently asked whether layoff boomerangs were common. “I know if you get laid off or laid off you basically end up on the ‘don’t hire’ list, but what happens when you get laid off?” the poster wrote, referring to performance improvement plans. “Has anyone ever returned after being released?” Amazingly, I have never experienced anything like this in my career.”
A Microsoft employee said he’s seen it with “several engineers,” particularly those who were laid off during the Great Recession only to rejoin about a year later. Some were interviewed again, but it was a “mere formality.”
Admittedly, boomeranging – if an employee can tolerate the initial awkwardness – could be a powerful move. An employee likely already knows their stuff, can skip the interview process entirely, and doesn’t have to prove themselves or build new relationships with managers.
Of course it would also help the company. “Rehiring employees means savings on recruiting costs, onboarding and training, and they benefit from newfound knowledge from their recent employment experience,” wrote Ryan Wong, CEO of software companyvisor, on LinkedIn last year. But after a year, employees are significantly less likely to consider boomeranging. And when they come back, they’ll likely expect an average salary increase of 25%, Wong added. This leaves employers with the question: How much are your boomerangs worth?