Conversation Starter: More Than Half Of Professionals Would NOT Return To Work For Employer That Laid Them Off 

Due to the events of the last several years—a global pandemic, labor market volatility, international disputes, and beyond—professionals have grappled with varying degrees of job security. By some estimates, tech companies alone have laid off more than 350,000 professionals this year, with industry juggernauts like Meta and Salesforce cutting thousands of jobs.

So what happens when these companies need to start hiring again and the people they laid off make their way into the candidate pool? We’re about to find out. As companies accelerate hiring again, they’re finding themselves face-to-face with former employees whose jobs they previously eliminated. 

Professionals in the Glassdoor community are weighing in on whether they would accept a job offer to return to a company that laid them off. Nearly 6,000 professionals weighed in and more than half of them (58%) would not return to a company that laid them off. 

The industries with professionals least likely to return to an employer that laid them off are law (23%) and accounting (31%). The most likely to return are sales (50%), advertising (48%), and finance (48%). As for tech, 46% of professionals would accept a job offer to return to a company that laid them off  

In terms of gender, men are slightly more likely to return, with 45% of men saying they’d return to the employer that laid them off while 39% of women would do the same. And as far as age goes, 51% of those over 45 would return to an employer that laid them off. Around ~41% of those aged 21-44 would do the same.  

Methodology: This poll ran from September 24, 2023 through October 6, 2023 and was answered by 5,742 professionals on Fishbowl by Glassdoor. Respondents could answer with either “Yes” or “No” to the question, “Would you accept a job offer to return to a company that laid you off?”

Conversation Starters are a periodic series of charts and data points from Glassdoor’s Economic Research team aimed at sparking conversations on timely trends in employee satisfaction, workplace community, the future of work, and the labor market more broadly. 

To speak with Glassdoor Economic Research about this report, please contact pr@glassdoor.com. For the latest economic research, subscribe to Glassdoor Economic Research.