If you take it you're not eligible to unemployment. I think in this market, given the undefined length of employment searching at the moment, that's a major consideration.
For most Microsoft employees, the maximum unemployment benefits in most states are a rounding error vs the buyout offer. Here in Missouri it's $320, maxed to 20 weeks. So for most local employees that might get this letter, It's less than a month of salary, and that without accounting for months of health benefits, which I bet the buyout includes.
Unemployment in WA where Microsoft is headquartered has quite generous unemployment. Max of $1208 a week up to 26 weeks and based on your previous salary so most certainly ex-Microsoft will be maxing this out.
Yeah, it’s really not for us, it’s more about tiding over a laid-off retail worker so they don’t get evicted. Not allowing someone with a mortgage in Cupertino or Redmond and little savings to keep their lifestyle mostly intact with just a little belt-tightening.
And I’m not saying that in a grumpy way. Yes we do have much higher salaries, and because of that it’s reasonable that it’s on us to save up for this type of rainy day, in accordance with our own personal risk assessment.
It’s honestly something I spent 15 years rarely thinking about, because while I’ve seen many RIFs, I was never worried since getting a new job was as easy as just responding to a few of the messages that constantly came in via LinkedIn or email. No longer.
I would assume a lot of the types of people you're talking about are in fact not Microsoft employees, it's way more common these days to hire people like on-site cooks through agencies that effectively make them contractors for Microsoft. This notice is definitely about "corporate" employees, and I believe another comment noted that in a different source it's stated that sales and marketing are not even being offered this deal.
States like Florida cap out at $275/week with a maximum of $3,300 (over just 12 weeks). McDonalds pays around $16/hr according to indeed. Unemployment almost might as well not exist.
