Laid off and rehire

[djones893]

I was laid off 4 months ago and took the early retirement package. Great company that just went through some stuff. I'm not quite ready to actually retire. They just posted a position that I'm very interested in. I saw on another website that a company can only rehire someone who took early retirement as a contractor or part-timer. Does anyone know if this is an actual law? Or is it just a particular company's policy?

Thanks!

 

[bingybear]

I don't think it is law. many companies do this because they have issues paying pensions/retirement and having the person as a full time employee with retirement benefits being earned.

 

[mh]

I don't think it is law. many companies do this because they have issues paying pensions/retirement and having the person as a full time employee with retirement benefits being earned.

Yes, that's the way it is at most all medium / large / mega companies


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[rayinpenn]

Has happened many times at my mega crop.. Generally hired back as a consultant.


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[Big_Hitter]

To commence the qualified pension it has to be a bona fide separation of service.

 

[jim584672]

My severance agreement said I could never work for the company in any capacity in the future.

 

[Lisa99]

Varies by company, in the US anyway.

DH's agreement was he had to be gone for 1 year. My company is doing massive lay-offs and the severance agreement states you can come back after 1 year also.

 

[Texas Proud]

So did you actually get money from the retirement plan or are you saying you got credits etc. and maybe some money from the company that you are calling early retirement? It makes a difference...


If you are a teacher here and retire, you can go back to work but you are limited to 50% of a regular salary... IOW, if you work more than that it affects your pension. My sister knows some teachers that continue to teach into their 70s doing debate coaching a couple of days a week... so they get their pension and part time salary...


My other question is what makes you think they would hire you? When another sister of mine got laid off and took a package, she saw a job that she would have been perfect for... but did not get hired. It just was not done where she worked.... even if the person they hire was not that great, it just was not done....

 

[Donzo]

My old company had the 1 year separation also. I have decided to add a couple zeros to that before considering going back....

 

[Lisa99]

My other question is what makes you think they would hire you? When another sister of mine got laid off and took a package, she saw a job that she would have been perfect for... but did not get hired. It just was not done where she worked.... even if the person they hire was not that great, it just was not done....

My company is the opposite. Once they've met their silly budget cuts targets for that layoff round, they start hiring folks back as contractors a year later and some of them convert back to full time. I never have figured out the logic of it.

We had one woman take an early retirement package a couple of years ago. She was one of the few experts in a particular field in our company. She immediately went to work for an embedded consulting company and came back to 'us' at easily 4x what she made as an employee.

 

[target2019]

A lot of the wiggling on these employment re-hire situations is circumvention around various legal aspects which I have no interest in understanding.

Like Donzo, I won't go back. There are plenty of opportunities elsewhere.

 

[Texas Proud]

My company is the opposite. Once they've met their silly budget cuts targets for that layoff round, they start hiring folks back as contractors a year later and some of them convert back to full time. I never have figured out the logic of it.

We had one woman take an early retirement package a couple of years ago. She was one of the few experts in a particular field in our company. She immediately went to work for an embedded consulting company and came back to 'us' at easily 4x what she made as an employee.

Yes, companies can do some strange things....

It was 30 to 40 years ago that my brother took a job... moved to their headquarters... worked 4 weeks and was let go... he got caught in a power struggle and his boss's boss lost... the whole group was fired... which is why my brother was.... he got a package even though he worked 4 weeks... then two weeks later he got a call from the company wanting him to come back as he was the best qualified for the job... he did...


The other thing is that some of the higher ups make strange budget decisions (I did budgeting for many years, I should know).... they would require 'savings'.... you would have to show those savings happened.... but then you would be able to come back and show that you needed to 'invest' in something else and they would approve... so you would hire back the person you laid off for job X, but now they were doing job Y.... X and Y could be the same, similar or completely different...

I always thought it was stupid to lay off someone and then hire them back for any reason... at least in the same dept...

 

[CaliforniaMan]

Yes, companies can do some strange things....

It was 30 to 40 years ago that my brother took a job... moved to their headquarters... worked 4 weeks and was let go... he got caught in a power struggle and his boss's boss lost... the whole group was fired... which is why my brother was.... he got a package even though he worked 4 weeks... then two weeks later he got a call from the company wanting him to come back as he was the best qualified for the job... he did...


The other thing is that some of the higher ups make strange budget decisions (I did budgeting for many years, I should know).... they would require 'savings'.... you would have to show those savings happened.... but then you would be able to come back and show that you needed to 'invest' in something else and they would approve... so you would hire back the person you laid off for job X, but now they were doing job Y.... X and Y could be the same, similar or completely different...

I always thought it was stupid to lay off someone and then hire them back for any reason... at least in the same dept...

Great post! Have seen similar need for "savings" even when it actually would hurt what the company was doing. No matter what what was cut before, there always needed to be new cuts.

Reminds me of the old story about the young grocery clerk I heard somewhere. The young guy was just hired and working in the produce department. Had an idea how to save money and make the store more profits. Went to his boss and said "you know hardly anyone buys rutabagas, we could make more money if we removed them and replaced that shelf space with something that sells better. The boss told him great idea, and instructed him to do just that. After the boy finished the boss asked the boy. What is the least selling produce now?

 

[Koolau]

My Megacorp had a huge "package deal" to get rid of a lot of old timers. They sweetened the pension package and were very successful at dumping mass quantities of w*rkers. There was a strict policy that NO one would ever be hired back - no matter what. A couple of years later, local contractors were hiring the old w*rkers to back fill Megacorp's needs. Megacorp put pressure on the contact companies to get rid its former w*rkers - without success. The strained relations between the former w*rkers (though the contractor) and Megacorp was palpable. Eventually Megacorp found other contractors to back fill j*bs WITHOUT any former w*rkers. It seemed draconian to say the least.

 

[Lakewood90712]

No law I know of for the private sector. But if the position is with the same pension plan, it's likely prohibited by policy.

The city I retired from has a law (part of the city administrative code) prohibits salary payments to anyone drawing a pension from that city , except elected officials. Short term contract employment of retirees is allowed. About a third of the council were double dipping, all of those , retired PD, drawing a pension, simultaneously with salary as council member ,and building up a second pension to boot.

One who just termed out of council. 14 years ago he retired as police chief, then went on to 12 years on council. Now draws both a public safety pension, and a civilian pension. Please don't ask about the $$$,$$$ my head will explode - really. https://www.laprogressive.com/bernard-parks-campaign/

Back to reality----Knowing what the company wants, and is willing to pay, it would be ideal for you to do the job as a contractor, and should be paid more than an employee. because no benefits are included.Go for it as a contractor !

 

[pb4uski]

....The other thing is that some of the higher ups make strange budget decisions (I did budgeting for many years, I should know).......

+1 on that. At one place that I worked we traveled 85% and at one point were trying to constrain travel costs by calling hotels to swing deals (we might have 5 people there for 4 weeks so we could swing some pretty good deals) and staying in lower tier hotels than we normally did. So one day I get a call from the boss and he tells me to move the team out of the lower tier hotel that we were then staying at to a higher tier hotel. I responded "Joe, you've been squeezing me like hell on travel costs for 6 months and now you're telling me to move into the Hilton? WTF?". He explained that he had just got out of a budget meeting and since we were doing so good YTD compared to budget for travel that the power that be were threatening to reduce the budget for the following year and the boss' answer was to spend more this year.