Anybody else gotten laid off?

Sorry man. My business is deemed essential so I get to work still just from home. However, all of us salaried employees got hit with an email at the end of Friday we would be getting a 10% pay cut starting March 30th.

Prayers that you find a job soon, and that you can find peace during these difficult times.

Out of curiosity, what line of work are you in?

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Anybody else gotten laid off?

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It's always interesting to explain the concept of "laid off" to non-Americans, as it's simply an illegal concept in much of the world. Outside the US (usually), if the employee is not needed, they must be terminated without cause and paid full severance. Explaining a company "laying off" employees makes folks from other countries quickly gasp, "What the frick? How is that legal?"

Prayers for any of you that are in fact laid off. It sucks.

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Outside the US (usually), if the employee is not needed, they must be terminated without cause and paid full severance. 

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How much "full severance" are they typically paid? Do they also get any state unemployment compensation after they're terminated while they're seeking another job?

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How much severance are they typically paid?

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In CR, every employee, regardless of salaried/hourly or full-time/part-time is guaranteed by the gov't to the following when terminated without cause, to be paid by the employer:

1 month of salary for every year employed by the company, prorated to the month, up to a maximum of 8 months, plus any of the gov't mandated 12 paid holidays not used up to that point in the year, plus the percentage of the aguinaldo generated for the year (Aguinaldo is the 13th month of salary paid to every employee in December).

So, if an employee makes $4,000 a month and has been employed by a company for 5.5 years, they'd take home:
$4,000 x 5.5
$2000 (partial aguinaldo)
$1,200 (6 vacation days generated in final year)

So about $25,200. And that's just the gov't regulated part of it. Many companies will have better severance than that, usually related to things like being able to accumulate paid vacation days across years and getting paid for them, etc.

And the above calculation goes for every employee from the bottom to the top of the economy, yes even the teens working at the mall.

But if you quit of your own volition or are fired with cause, you only get the aguinaldo and vacation days.

EDIT: Sorry, there's one more thing: as part of the universal healthcare system, every employee has a couple of pensions with the gov't banks, kinda like 401ks/social security. I think one of them can be withdrawn after 5 years and one is when you are 65 or whatever. Not sure the ages, as it's different for men and women. The point is that when you leave a company, you can get some of that pension money if you want depending on the time-frame.

Also, many companies have employee associations that have crazy awesome pension things that can be withdrawn and borrowed against like a credit union kinda deal, but that is company by company, not gov't mandated.

And any concept like "laying off" an employee is just illegal.

Also, there is the concept of an independent contractor, to which the above explanation doesn't apply. They have different rules, but it's not a very common arrangement.

I have no idea if unemployment benefits is a concept that exists here. Everyone has Healthcare, but that's different. I'll ask.

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Yeah, I was going to mail you a check to help you out during this time.

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I appreciate the kind gesture but Do Not do that. I don’t need money. I’ve got enough in my savings for about 6 months plus I will be collecting unemployment . Surely, I will be back at work by then.

I'll take it