Many of us have heard of “boomerang employees”—someone who leaves a company and later returns—but there’s a newer version showing up in the workplace: the layoff boomerang.
Maybe you’ve seen it yourself. A coworker disappears after a round of cuts, only to show up again a few months later. Same desk. Same job. Sometimes even a bigger paycheck.
According to research done by Dr. Andrea Derler at workforce analytics firm Visier, 5.3% of laid-off employees now get rehired by the same organization after a layoff.
But the most surprising part isn’t the number—it’s that it’s been happening for years.
We just didn’t know.
“What surprised me the most was that this has been happening for the last several years. The 5.3% isn’t just a recent figure; consistently, organizations seem to be rehiring after layoffs,” she says.
While it might feel more prevalent now, with AI adding confusion and uncertainty for business leaders, it was happening during the pandemic as well—and maybe even before then.
“Change has always happened,” Derler said. “We’ve always had those crisis moments, but things just come out into the open more nowadays. We have the data.”
So why is this happening? Are companies realizing they let valuable talent go too quickly? And is the rise of AI making this more common?
To find out, Fast Company spoke with Derler about her research, as well as several employees who shared their boomerang experiences anonymously to avoid potential retaliation.
