Layoffs happening every two weeks, but new job postings keep going up nonstop. Can anyone explain this to me like I'm five? Because I'm lost.
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Seeing a pattern in my area but to confirm let’s do a survey! If you were laid off or fired, what is your? age/ethnicity/location/tenure maybe someone should start a new thread for this so others see it more outwardly vs under this thread to respond but we can start here.
T
Basically if you are in tech and want to survive you should go to BE's and the don't talk backers camps in OH and India.
They'd rather bring in somebody new (who might be a friend of the hiring manager) vs. giving the opportunity to somebody who is already in the company. the perception is that we don't have the skills for some of these things. Problem is, people coming in from the outside don't know jack sh*t about our world.
CEO FOMO
@OP, it makes perfect sense when you stop believing the “efficiency” story and start seeing the real pattern: Layoffs every two weeks + nonstop job postings = classic offshoring churn, not genuine growth. They cut high-cost U.S. employees (150k+) → post “replacement” roles in cheaper hubs (Charlotte) or offshore (India/Philippines) at 80k or less → call it “backfill” or “strategic hiring.”
The net headcount still drops, costs fall, and the “All India Project” quietly continues. This is exactly what the account scandal taught leadership: Create fear → force attrition
Replace expensive knowledge workers with cheaper bodies
Mask it with buzzwords (“efficiency,” “needs of the business,” “growing in new markets”)
@as, is right: the “bottom 10%” myth is nonsense here. They’re not surgically removing low performers—they’re displacing randomly or by location, seniority, or manager whim. Institutional knowledge bleeds out (processes, gotchas, system interfaces), quality tanks, and the bank keeps pretending it’s strategic. Ethics? Same as 2016: abuse customers → abuse employees.
No real restructuring—just coercion dressed as transformation.
@af & @ar are half-right: yes, some LOBs grow (WIM/CIB), others shrink (Tech/Ops), but the overall direction is U.S. contraction + offshore expansion. The “apply internally” line is PR—most displaced folks never get rehired; they’re collateral.
Document dates/locations/ratings, upskill on their dime (if in tech... AI/Snowflake/Security certs via tuition reimbursement), quietly quit emotionally, and job search aggressively—JPMorgan, Capital One, Truist are hiring real teams. Read The Fearless Organization—you’ll see why this fear factory is doomed.
My mission: fearless workplaces.
There is a better option. Go get it before the next “efficiency” wave hits.
simple thy layoff a many year employee making 150k and hire a newbie for 80k in a cheaper state
They never stop hiring. Maybe more importantly they never want to appear like they aren't hiring either.
Say you are a senior leader. You think I'll keep hiring more people and constantly letting go the bottom 10% of them. You think this makes the quality of your workforce rise over time as you'll keep getting better and better people by releasing the low end of your talent pool.
What you are missing: 1) value of people is not just their individual skills, it includes their understanding of your business domain, your processes, and applications. The constant turn over prevents building up depth of WF business knowledge - reducing overall value of the workforce 2) if you are hiring random people this plan might work to a point, but we interview and should be hiring better people. This means the range of the top to the bottom performers isnt wide and easy to differate. Experience is showing we are not good at picking out the bottom 10% - we seem to be displacing people at random. 3) that top talent you want to attract and keep - it can go wherever it wants and it will leave or never come to Well Fargo because people talk to each other and who wants to work in a place in continual churn that doesn't value its workforce?
Because a group of leaders have faulty over simplistic logic, lack empathy, erroneously believe people are replacable interchangable cogs, and fundamentally do not understand the 'work' people under them do, thinking it is unrelated to work that was done before or work that will follow it and it doesn't matter how its done: that all leads to what we see happening the marked drop of the quality of our workers and our product. By tearing people down and never working to build them up its not surprising to the rest of us these leaders diminish the quality of their own organizations. Their organizations should fail. The only sad part to it is the utter lack of accountability for leaders at Well Fargo
Concept- parts of a massive company continue to grow and expand into new markets, while other parts shrink or drive efficiency, leading to layoffs.
Wrong city or country
Plus, people are getting laid off in non-hubs and they're backfilling in Charlotte mainly. Some LOBs are growing like WIM/CIB and some are shrinking like Tech, Ops
Some groups are shrinking, moving their ops to India. Other groups are growing. Its pretty normal for a large company. If you are displaced, you can apply for one of the open jobs.