> Prospective employees don't know who got laid off, and even if they did, they most likely don't personally know any of those people.
True, I've never interviewed somewhere where someone I know personally got laid off. But for large companies there are typically news articles about layoffs, their size, and occasionally even their generosity. For publicly-traded companies you can wait for the annual/quarterly reports, but these days there's usually a press release or blog post[1] if it's more than a handful of people. For private companies that are too small to be newsworthy you can still scour Glassdoor and other forums.
But regardless, it's definitely something a prospective employee should ask about during the interview e.g. "Tell me about the last time your organization had layoffs...". Obviously you get a positive spin from an HR or hiring manager, but when I'm interviewing I find those answers most informative.
True, I've never interviewed somewhere where someone I know personally got laid off. But for large companies there are typically news articles about layoffs, their size, and occasionally even their generosity. For publicly-traded companies you can wait for the annual/quarterly reports, but these days there's usually a press release or blog post[1] if it's more than a handful of people. For private companies that are too small to be newsworthy you can still scour Glassdoor and other forums.
But regardless, it's definitely something a prospective employee should ask about during the interview e.g. "Tell me about the last time your organization had layoffs...". Obviously you get a positive spin from an HR or hiring manager, but when I'm interviewing I find those answers most informative.
[1] e.g. https://blog.google/inside-google/message-ceo/january-update...