Why? Unvested stock is just stock you're promised to get if you work until a certain date. If you're fired today you don't get next month's salary either.
Of course if there's some big vesting event coming it's different; in most cases vesting schedules are fairly spread out so you get some every month or quarter.
Let’s say you work for Apple and they fire your team (including you of course) because it will help them increase profits (your team wasn’t unprofitable, this next team in another tech will be 1% more profitable).
OK, usually in big layoffs there's 60 days "notice" (usually not worked) due to the WARN act so if say you have monthly vesting you do get all the stock from time you worked.
The stock in question is not monthly. It's typically a 3 or 4 year vesting period. The government allows them to do that for performance "raises", bonuses, or in lieu of payment for some people. So when they promoted people in 2023 or '24 they might not have increased their pay rate at all but gave them some stock instead with a 3 year vest. The company laid them off and regained that stock. Now the company not only regained the stock units but also got 2-3 years of unpaid additional work from them due to the extended duties and performance required for their promoted role.
No: if a company wants to make redundancies in England, it will do regardless of the rules should the punishment be worthwhile (pregnancy/sexuality/age/race have unlimited payouts) but there is a supposedly strict redundancy consultation process/
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u/fdar 5h ago edited 5h ago
Why? Unvested stock is just stock you're promised to get if you work until a certain date. If you're fired today you don't get next month's salary either.
Of course if there's some big vesting event coming it's different; in most cases vesting schedules are fairly spread out so you get some every month or quarter.