My son is a recent college grad, he has been with SAP for under six months and he was shown the door. I'm still trying to figure out what was the point of even hiring him in the first place.
Not to mention, he had two other offers he turned down to take the SAP position. How is this fair?
Many managers were informed about who in their team will be layed off only one day in advance. Not sure who made the decisions and how about who would to let go!
You should read this article. It explains what's happening at SAP very well:
https://www.brightworkresearch.com/saphana/2019/03/08/saps-layoffs-and-a-brightwork-warning-on-hana/
It’s interesting that you post this as a parent – I am a parent too, my daughter was laid off last week and I’ve been keeping an eye on this site. I felt angry as she did everything right from the earliest age and she felt that she found an ideal company to work for – she was invested and engaged and felt that things were going well.
The news hit her really hard as she saw herself spending long time at SAP. Nonetheless, she’ll have to course correct and I am sure she will be fine. I think she learned a lot in a very short period and this experience coupled with her CS major should be an OK combination for finding jobs. Good luck to all and I am really sorry for all people who lost their jobs last weeks (it looks like they are mostly done with culling, so fingers crossed it’s over).
When I worked for a start-up of around 300 people we would have occasional layoffs. Most of the people let go were under performers or people that were HR violations. I rarely saw a great employee let go. It was an easy way to clean house without legal risk.
Whole organizations are being laid off - the entire data management division's US staff (HANA, other databases, DBMS tools) was laid off, from the group's Sr. VP down to new hires. At least one product was entirely US and I think has no developers left worldwide to support the base product.
Fairness is not included in criteria for layoffs - many teams with very qualified knowledgeable experienced individuals were included in these layoffs. Agree layoffs especially in countries with lesser laws protecting the employees are used to reduce costs - path of least resistance. Criteria was not based on qualifications and experience. A target was set and met and operations in countries where layoffs are easiest to achieve are being hit the hardest. Including new hires may also be a way to mask statistics as the real targets are employees considered "too expensive" regardless of their qualifications and contributions.
Why do you expect layoffs to be fair? Yes, layoffs normally target older employees, but you can be sure that companies are looking at all employees including new hires to see if they want to retain them. Layoffs represent a free get out of jail card for companies who can use layoffs to clean house. Within a few months companies will have a pretty good idea whether they like a new hire, or not . Normally, they might not get rid of a new hire who was borderline, but if they have to shed people, that would be enough for sure.