‘Silent sacking’: Amazon eliminated employee from his role but still giving him salary; here’s what happened

We all have been hearing stories from several employees fired during the several rounds of layoff at the e-commerce giant Amazon, laying off thousands of its employees across the globe. In one of the interesting stories that came out recently, one employee talked about how he is no longer working for the company but is still getting a salary in his blog post.

The employee referred to a practice called "silent sacking" and said that many companies use this tactic to let go of people without actually laying them off.

"The negative press associated with layoffs wasn’t good. But the most effective way to reduce operational expenses was to get rid of all the expensive people. How could they force people to leave without severance packages or en masse? Making them miserable and silently sacking them," the blog post reads.

In his blog post, senior developer advocate Justin Garrison of Amazon Web Services (AWS) disclosed that he was left uncertain following the elimination of his function and team without facing termination. He claimed he is still working in a position without defined tasks despite his efforts to obtain a new one.

Speaking about his personal experience, the Amazon employee mentioned that on September 1, 2023, he was asked to step down from his position. He was informed that he would still be working with Amazon even though he had no official position there. He was either ignored or received ambiguous responses when he inquired about possibly receiving a severance package.

"They told us our number one priority was to find another job. Every role we found had significant downsides. Lower pay, lower title, RTO, or various other things. It was clear they wanted us to take a different role we could quit later. My management wanted to retain the headcount but couldn’t do lay-offs," he wrote.

He then added that when he asked his VP about severance on October 16 but was told that the "HR wasn’t aware of what he was doing and he would have to get approval. It would take some time."

"Every week for the next 2 1/2 months, I asked for an update on my employment and severance package. I was either ghosted or given a variety of excuses. It’s now December 30th and I’m currently still employed by Amazon," he added in the post.

Garrison also mentioned that he was not the only one going through this situation. "This has been happening in multiple areas as Amazon silently sacks people without being required to give them severance or announce layoffs. I’ve heard similar tactics being used at other companies–mostly large companies–and it’ll only continue in 2024 as they make decisions that drive short-term profits over all else," he added.

Also Read: Amazon eliminated his role months ago, he is still getting a salary for doing nothing