Former Kroger employees who left the company have gotten some surprising texts and emails. The supermarket operator – the largest in the country by sales – wants him back, and is not shy to reach out and let him know.
That’s not usually how it works, of course. After you leave the company, there is a small chance that they will reach out later to ask you to come back. You may have left your boss in trouble, for one thing. But the lowest unemployment rate in 53 years means companies are getting creative about filling open positions.
“Alumni are also a source of talent,” Tim Massa, chief executive officer at Grosir, said The Wall Street Journal. According to him, the Cincinnati-based company has tried hard since the pandemic ended to stay in touch with former employees and many have returned.
For example, the company persuaded Tish Spurlock, a former recruiter at Kroger, to return after reaching out to her, Journal reported. Spurlock had left for a tech company but returned to Kroger in a new role with a higher salary.
Associated Wholesale Wholesale meanwhile has reached out to former employees through LinkedIn and Facebook, according to Journal. Companies have become more aggressive with rehiring after seeing how well it works — returning workers generally hit their targets months before new ones.
Of course, fears of a lingering recession, credit card debt in the U.S. rising as savings dwindle amid high inflation, and headlines about mass layoffs at major corporations have been inevitable in recent months. . But those layoffs are often concentrated in the tech industry, where many companies are overhired to meet rising demand during the pandemic.
Last month, Amazon began laying off 18,000 people, Microsoft cut 10,000, and Google parent Alphabet cut 12,000 jobs. That follows Facebook owner Meta cutting 11,000 workers in November. Meta is expected to cut more jobs in the future as part of a “year of efficiency.” Last year more than 150,000 tech workers were laid off, according to the tracking website Layoffs.fyi. But many other tech companies are still hiring, and laid-off tech workers generally don’t stay out of work for long.
Across the U.S. economy, many workers who left their jobs during the Great Recession are finding higher wages in new jobs. Meanwhile, employers who are short of workers feel the need to increase salaries or offer higher wages to attract new talent.
Or in the case of Kroger and others, contact laid off workers.
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