They Let You Go, and Now They Want You Back. What Should You Do?
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What would you do if the employer that laid you off last week offered your job back the week after? Some workers are facing that surprising situation. Well, as you might guess, the first reaction is usually take a hike, right? And sometimes that bridge really is burned. But not always. We'll talk with Wall Street Journal columnist Callum Borshers about the benefits and drawbacks of being called back to work. That's after the break.

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Federal workers and even some private sector employees are grappling with a tough decision. Should they return to an employer that says, sorry, we laid you off, but we actually want you back?

WSJ columnist Callum Borshers joins me to dive into this breakup makeup situation. Callum, honestly, until the Doge layoffs, I don't think I really heard many stories about laid off workers being asked to come back to work. How common is it for companies to come crawling back?

The unsatisfying but honest answer is we don't know exactly. There's some LinkedIn data from a few years ago showing about 4% of hires are boomerangs, right? That's the term for people who leave and come back. But LinkedIn hasn't updated that figure recently. And in any case, it includes people who left voluntarily.

I think the reason recruiters and job coaches say we could see more of these layoffs and rehires now is because of the economic uncertainty of the current moment, right? We've got tariffs going on and off, stock prices going up and down. Businesses often talk about right sizing when they do these layoffs, but it can be hard to know what the right size is in this market.

And how in the world do the companies make this type of mistake? I mean, can you even call it a mistake? Well, it can be a mistake. I mean, in the same way that a bunch of companies overhired during the post-pandemic recovery, some of them also scaled back too far in the past year or so. And then there are cases where a business eliminated roles in a restructuring and then invites those affected workers to reapply for different jobs within the company. So in that scenario, it's more of a strategic decision than a mistake. And in your story, which is linked in the show notes,

You mentioned that AI has played a role in these callbacks. How does that work? Yeah, this is a development I hadn't thought about. If you think about how a layoff and a rehire would traditionally play out, it would be kind of an ad hoc process where a manager remembers, so-and-so used to be really good. Let's try and get her back. Well, now the process can get an AI boost.

I talked to an HR software company called Vizier that helps businesses track their employees' performance, compensation skills, et cetera. And they encourage their customers to keep those records on hand after someone leaves. Well, now there's a good...

body of work after several years of doing this. And so if a new role opens up at the company, they can use an AI tool to mine this database they've been building for years now of these old employee files, including those ex-employees. So you might find a good match and then you can reach out with a little bit more science behind it.

That could be pretty encouraging if you experienced a layoff. I actually experienced one not that long ago, and it was very surprising, and it stung quite a bit. But I'm not sure how I would feel about going back.

How did the workers that you spoke to feel about hearing from their employers again? Well, as you might guess, the first reaction is usually take a hike, right? And sometimes that bridge really is burned. I talked to a woman named Christy Jones, for example, who said she got one of those ominous calendar invitations on a Sunday night, right? We've heard people talk about this. It just shows up.

And then she's let go in a meeting the next morning. She said she was escorted out of the building right away. The company boxed up her stuff and mailed it to her. She didn't even get to go back to her desk. So she found the experience so callous that she said no way when an executive called her to offer her old job back. But I've also heard from others who are more open to the idea. And when would it be best for workers to at least consider going back, especially if it's been long?

a humiliating experience getting laid off. Being really sort of honest about what are your current job prospects for landing something better and being realistic about that. You know, another woman I spoke with, for example, named Jessica Swenson told me she was laid off on a Thursday and asked back as a contractor the following Monday. So very tight turn. And she said it stung, especially because she'd just gotten a promotion six months earlier. But then she remembered she'd always wanted to try freelancing.

And so here was her ex-employer offering to be her first client, basically. So she said yes. And she says she's actually really enjoying the freedom to set her own hours and be her own boss now, several months after the fact. So she had sort of best of both worlds. She could have the freedom, but also she had her employer or her former employer as one of her clients, right?

Are there any financial considerations you should be thinking about when it comes to going back? Like, what if you were paid severance or you've been filing for unemployment? For sure. You should absolutely think about those things. Christy Jones, who I mentioned earlier, said, look,

She wanted to tell her ex-employer to take a hike. And also she was sitting on six-month severance and felt like financially she could. Having that kind of runway makes a real difference there, right? So it wasn't a purely emotional decision. For somebody like Jessica, who ultimately did go back in a contractor role, she said, you know, I was kind of looking at what the job market is right now. I did have some savings. She also has a partner who has a steady job. So again, felt like maybe I could swing it, but I'd rather not roll the dice.

I'd rather take what I can get while I can get it. So the consistent advice I heard from career coaches on this front, and recruiters for that matter, is be honest with yourself and don't just make an emotional decision. And if you're trying to make a better deal for yourself, like how should you think about vacation days, especially if you got those paid out? Sometimes when you start with a new employer, you start from...

two weeks or not as much vacation time as you would have had before. Yeah, the career advisors I spoke with said all of that is negotiable, whether it is I want credit for all of my past service when it comes to investing in the retirement account or those vacation day buildup

Give it a shot. A job coach I spoke with named Deborah Wheatman said she has clients who have gone back to raises and promotions because they had some leverage. Now, not everybody. She's also had people go back to basically the same job they had before, or maybe even with a heavier workload because other people who were laid off did not come back. So that's, you know, just to give you a realistic set of expectations.

Recruiters also point out that these boomerang employees do have real value because they can save companies money in on boarding costs. So companies know it takes time and money to go out and find the right fit. And then when you find someone brand new, you might have to put up with three to six months of subpar production because they're just getting up to speed. If you're a former employee who can just plug and play, you're worth something. So you might be feeling kind of down and out because you just got laid off, but you actually might have the upper hand.

That's WSJ columnist Callum Borshers. And that's it for your Money Briefing. Tomorrow, we'll have our weekly markets wrap up, what's news in markets, and then we'll be back on Monday. This episode was produced by Ariana Osparu. I'm your host, Jana Herron. Jessica Fenton and Michael LaValle wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Melanie Roy. Aisha Al-Muslim is our development producer.

Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. Thanks for listening.