Bluesky

Well, both times they were voluntary layoffs. The first company was going to lay off something ridiculous, like a third of the workforce, with overseas employees part of the denominator but not the numerator. The first round was voluntary and offered the best severance package, so that's what I took. I was the newest employee in my group, so I figured the writing was on the wall.

The second time, my company's (company A) contract wasn't renewed. The company that did get the contract (B) offered to hire all the employees that were currently doing the work away from A. Otherwise the employee would be laid off from A.

I accepted the (crappy, effectively 30% pay cut) offer from B, got a better offer from C, then went back to B and said "thanks, but no thanks" about 2 months before the contract ended and the new one with B started. This meant that from A's point of view A laid me off, which gave me a month of severance per A's policy.