Some Google employees are rallying for voluntary buyouts to be offered before layoffs.
Noah Berger/Associated Press
Voluntary buyouts are having a moment in Big Tech.Workers at Google recently pressed the search giant to make the exit offers a standard first step whenever it plans job cuts — and to extend them to all members of affected teams, regardless of tenure. Microsoft, meanwhile, launched its first broad voluntary retirement program this past spring, offering packages to thousands of longtime US employees. It said that more than 30% of those eligible accepted.The developments are raising broader questions in tech, where many once-scrappy startups are now sprawling corporations — and where repeated rounds of layoffs have eliminated scores of jobs in recent years.Now that many of those businesses have workforces that include employees with decades of service, are buyouts — long part of the workforce-reduction playbook at legacy companies from Boeing to General Motors — a fairer, less painful way to reduce head count than layoffs? And should they remain reserved for veteran employees, as they traditionally have been, or be offered more widely?"Buyouts are becoming increasingly compelling for older Silicon Valley companies," said Laszlo Bock, a former Google head of human resources who now advises CEOs. "They have more eligible people, and it's a softer message for morale."A 'more humane' approachNearly 100 Google employees rallied this month outside the company's Mountain View headquarters, arguing that the company's past use of selective exit offers should become a broader and more consistent policy. As part of the event, the union presented a petition signed by more than 4,500 Googlers calling for improved layoff protections.Voluntary buyouts "provide agency to workers," said Emma Jackson, a Google employee of more than 20 years and a leader of the Alphabet Workers Union. Alphabet is Google's parent company.Jackson said workers nearing retirement might have accepted buyouts in earlier rounds of layoffs at Google, reducing the number of cuts needed. She called the approach "more humane."
