by Jameelah Mullen
May 16, 2025
Stealth layoffs are on the rise, some experts say.
Is your job’s return to office (RTO) mandate a sneaky way to push employees out? Some experts and employees believe so. Aki Ito, Chief Correspondent at Business Insider, was initially skeptical of the theory. However, after observing recent company trends, the perspective shifted.
“For years, I didn’t take the theory seriously: It struck me as incredibly cynical. Besides, it didn’t make any sense from a business perspective. What company in its right mind would risk a mass exodus just to save a few dollars on severance packages? But over the past year, I’ve started to wonder if the cynics are right.” Ito wrote in Business Insider.
Ito recalls when Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced its new RTO policy last year. AWS employees made headlines when they pushed back on the policy. In a letter addressed to the company’s CEO, Matt Garman, employees described the policy as unfair and “non-data-driven” while passive-aggressively threatening their job security.
“By rigidly mandating a 5-day in-office culture and telling employees who cannot or will not contribute to the company’s mission in this specific way that ‘there are other companies around,’ you are silencing critical perspectives and damaging our culture and our future in doing so,” the letter obtained by Business Insider reads.
Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS’s parent company, Amazon CEO denies the allegations that the RTO policy is an underhanded layoff tactic. But Dan Schawbel, managing partner at Workplace Intelligence, says that companies would be unlikely to admit to stealth layoff practices publicly.
“Companies would never come out and say it because of legal implications,” Schawbel told NBC Make It! “A company might use a return to office mandate as an opportunity to restructure its workforce, he told the outlet.
According to a report from BambooHR that surveyed companies on the return to office (RTO) trend, researchers found that 18 percent of human resource professionals and 25 percent of C-suite executives hoped aggressive RTO policies would lead to some voluntary turnover. Additionally, the survey found that nearly 30% of employees said they would consider quitting if their job implemented RTO policies.
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