The news hitting the charts of all the media houses and specifically in the marketing sector around the world is just one - Google lays off 18000 employees and so do other giants like Wipro, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. The outreach of the information has been on point. Each IT sector company or so-called Unicorns and Decacorns are in a laying off mood. The reason cited by them is that they are restructuring their firm and trying to achieve the optimum balance of growth and profitability. According to the January statistics more than 65000 employees have been stacked from their jobs.
Legal Aspect -
When it comes to the legal aspect regarding the laying off procedure the Industry and Dispute act 1947 along with the Companies act 2013 comes to play. An employee can only be laid off under specific circumstances like - theft, inadmissible behaviour, absenteeism, revealing private information of the firm, etc. Section 25C of the Industry and Dispute Act 1947 mentions maximum days allowed to lay off an employee by an employer is 45 days, for those days, an employee who is laid off is entitled to compensation equal to 50% of the total basic wages and dearness allowance that would have been payable to him. In case a company wants to fire an employee to implement cost-cutting measures or any other reason where the employee is not at fault, the employment agreement normally provides that the employee get an advance notice (often 30 to 90 days). An employee needs to be informed about the reason why he is laid off and that reason should have some credibility in the eyes of law.
An employee can even sue the firm for wrongful termination if he feels so is the required measure.
Opinion -
My eyes got to hold off this news while I was reading The Hindu and news was popping up that the employees might be laid off in the month of January. In my opinion, if the company wants to restructure then why did it at the very start hire employees more than required number? The employees are given that false ray of hope and transient happiness during the pandemic times by offering them jobs and now it is being snatched in such an oblivious manner. The amount of emotional trauma that a person goes through while hearing the termination news is just indescribable. A simple mark of apology can't compensate for the sudden flow of emotions. There are so many desires that get attached when one gets employed like - the desire to purchase a new car, a new apartment for parents, get rid of debts, accomplish all those left tasks which couldn’t be done due to financial issues and all of these gets shattered within seconds. The most illogical part of this entire process is that no reason is cited for the termination as it is an internal process of the company and not the employee’s personal conduct that led to the termination. The firm, in turn, to be a little magnanimous and of course, keeping its goodwill gives a 3-month salary from the date of termination and positive feedback to other companies that the employee applies for recruitment. Are these two initiatives enough to compensate for the loss that the employee has gone through? I am sure it isn’t. Private jobs are known to be risky but so immature I didn't think of it...