The authors suggested, that the stock price manipulation alone creates a sufficient motivation for publicly-traded corporations to adopt the practice of regular layoffs.
"Mass layoff" is defined by the United States Department of Labor as 50 or more workers laid off from the same company around the same time.
VRIF – Voluntary reduction in force – The employee(s) did play a role in choosing to leave the company, most likely through resignation or retirement.
In some instances, a company may exert pressure on an employee to make this choice, perhaps by implying that a layoff or termination would otherwise be imminent, or by offering an attractive severance or early retirement package.
The second factor is the risk of inequality being conditioned upon the political regime type in the country an employee is working in.
The method of separation may have an effect on a former employee's ability to collect whatever form of unemployment compensation might be available in their jurisdiction.
Depending on local or state laws, workers who leave voluntarily are generally ineligible to collect unemployment benefits, as are those who are fired for gross misconduct.
The benefits, which organizations claim to be seeking from downsizing, center on savings in labor costs, speedier decision making, better communication, reduced product development time, enhanced involvement of employees and greater responsiveness to customers (De Meuse et al. 1997, p. 168).
However, some writers draw attention to the 'obsessive' pursuit of downsizing to the point of self-starvation marked by excessive cost-cutting, organ failure and extreme pathological fear of becoming inefficient.
Although from the employer's perspective a layoff is beneficial for the business, layoffs create an uncertainty in the workplace environment and lowers other employees' job security as well as creates an apprehension and fear of termination for the remaining employees, and subsequently lowers overall motivation in the workplace environment.
According to Healing the Wounds: Overcoming the Trauma of Layoffs and Revitalizing Downsized Organizations,[27] in the post-layoff environment, there is a need for empathy, tangibility, self-knowledge, and relentlessly seeking customers among the surviving employees.
When an employee is laid off, his or her general trust in long-term work may decrease, reducing expectations upon rehire.
Layoffs in the workplace often leave the former employee less inclined to trust future employers which can lead to behavioral conflicts among co-workers and management.
Layoffs can erode confidence, making employees feel insecure about their job performance and career prospects.
If an industry that employs a majority of a region (freight in the northeast for example) suffers and has to lay employees off, there will be mass unemployment in an economically rich area.
[2] Certain countries (such as Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Germany), distinguish between leaving the company of one's own free will, in which case the person is not entitled to unemployment benefits, but may receive a onetime payment and leaving a company as part of a reduction in labour force size, in which case the person is entitled to them.
A RIF reduces the number of positions, rather than laying off specific people, and is usually accompanied by internal redeployment.
Department of Labor Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) requires employer "to provide at least 60 calendar days advance written notice of a plant closing and mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees".