Don't come to work! We need the savings

I'll make a more personal observation this time around: It's gotten really, really cold on the 22nd Floor of the Time & Life building. Some of us have been talking. It's not clear if the goal is to save money on the heating bill or if this is part of the "voluntary layoff" strategy.

Where I'm teaching, we're trying more hybrid classes- 2 hours in class per week, one hour of online class per course in my department. That's freed up a lot of classroom space... hopefully it leads to happier students and better outcomes.

Yes, my employer (US company - IT industry (like HP and Cisco)) have sent out the same message. In fact, it adds "if you don't have enough annual leave, please let HR know. you can bring fwd from the next cycle"

One of the worst bosses I ever worked for had a timed layoff for the middle stratum of management--basically, if most of your duties could be shifted up or down, you were given a month off without pay. This coincided with a busy season, so you had two-thirds as many people doing twice the work, much of which was only just learned because the person who usually did it was on forced leave.

Not directly tied to layoffs, but I also worked for a data-management company which twice had tech problems. First the power went out for two days, next the computer system got a virus which rendered the entire network unusable. Both times we were sent home and not paid for the time we couldn't work, but were expected to make up the work we couldn't do when we returned with a smaller time frame.

I suppose that might be better than the other option which is unemployment.