Company fired its employees while they were sleeping

(Representational image)

Just days before Thanksgiving, all employees of an American furniture company got a jolting message: that they were being let go immediately.

Drivers out on the road for deliveries were told to return to home, WLBT, an affiliate of NBC, reported.

Others were asleep when they got the message, since it was just before midnight on Monday, The Guardian reported.

“At the instruction of the board of directors … we regret to inform you that due to unforeseen business circumstances, the company has been forced to make the difficult decision to terminate the employment of all its employees, effective immediately,” United Furniture Industries told its staff of nearly 2,700, the New York Post reported.

Reports say debt had been piling on the company.

Employees are furious. Even families who worked with it for generations were not spared, news website FreightWaves reported.

One worker lamented how she took pride in the company that treated them in this manner.

Workers are left in jeopardy, worried about their bills and health.

“It is not fair to the laborers who seriously worked so hard to be blindsided like this,” another employee told FreightWaves. “It is not fair to the mom who just had a baby to wonder if she even has health insurance to cover it. It is not fair to the cancer patient in the midst of chemo about how to pay for her treatments.”

One employee has filed a lawsuit against the company for not providing 60 days notice about its closure.

The layoffs come amid a larger trend of sackings at big tech companies.

Twitter sacked roughly 50 percent of its 7,500-strong staff soon after Elon Musk took over the social network.

Meanwhile, Facebook parent Meta announced said it would fire over 11,000 employees. CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the decisions as "the most difficult changes we've made in Meta's history".

Amazon also initiated layoffs.

The economy remains in a challenging spot and we've hired rapidly the last several years," CEO Andy Jassy saying was quoted as saying by AFP.

(With inputs from AFP) 

Also read: Indians laid off by Amazon seek new roles: ‘On H-1B visa, time is of the essence’