This is not directed towards any specific employer, it is generic… Please forward if appropriate…
The short version is this: As a brand-new college grad (or other youngster new to the work force), you haven’t yet had the chance to get laid-off and blacklisted forever. Every year that you work (the older you get), the greater your chances of having been blacklisted forever. It’s that simple!
Caveats They are all 100% totally factual and rational and objective. No subjectivity involved! None at all!” … Unless your workers are driving “X” measurable lug nuts per day… Those kinds of jobs being long-gone in the USA today… Then this is just flat-out not true! Let’s say, for example, that you are trying to persuade a jury of this… (Make sure your selected jurors have worked for a boss at some time in their lives). Any rational common-sense juror will KNOW that there’s subjectivity in performance reviews! So dealing with “the probability of your getting laid off” (alluding to some randomness) is NOT an unrealistic assumption (or approximation), and most jurors will KNOW this!
Before doing the math, for you TOTAL geeks, we are dealing with “prior” probabilities here… The perspective of a brand-new hire, who does NOT know when the axe will eventually fall. “Posterior” probabilities are not of so much interest… Say the axe-chopping-rate is 1% per year. After each year passes, it is still 1% for the next year, assuming you’ve not gotten chopped yet… Otherwise you’ve already been chopped, and your probability is 100% ! That’s not of much interest…
Assume 1% then… 99% chance you still have your job one year from now. 5 years from now, it becomes 100% minus (0.99 times 0.99 times 0.99 times 0.99 times 0.99) or 100% minus (0.99 to the fifth power), or 95%.
If you run the numbers, it looks about like this:
Rate 1 yr 5 yrs 10 yr 15 yr 20 yr 30 years (Prob. Of Still Have Job)
99% 99% 95% 90% 86% 82% 75%
98% 98% 90% 82% 75% 67% 55%
97% 97% 86% 75% 64% 54% 40%
96% 96% 82% 66% 54% 44% 29%
95% 95% 77% 60% 46% 36% 21%
(That last 21% means you’d have a 79 chance of being laid off by then).
Does anyone know the current rough numbers of employees v/s how many are laid off every year, for a sample company? That would give us a rough “probability” of being laid off…