A reduction in force ends a job. It does not walk the laptop back to the desk.
On October 20, Vermont Information Processing in Colchester told employees it was making a permanent reduction in force of 66 people. VTDigger reported that the site stays open, and that internal communications tied the cuts to technology that had “reduced the manual workload.” The people leave. The building they leave does not collect a machine that is already in a kitchen.
The notices arrived together
The same week, California and New York filings covered hundreds more jobs.
- eBay filed a permanent layoff of 229 people at its San Jose headquarters. The California notice was processed October 21. The Silicon Valley Business Journal said the roles include engineering, product, design, research, and data.
- Netflix notices processed October 19 cover 227 jobs in Los Gatos and 267 in Los Angeles. The San Francisco Chronicle described the two California notices as part of a cut of about 6 percent of the company’s global workforce.
- Altera Digital Health posted a New York notice on October 20 for 133 workers in Melville, listed as a contract expiration. Those are health-IT jobs. The laptops in that office sit closer to patient systems than a retail laptop does.
Together that is 922 jobs. The notices count positions. Use them as the moment to confirm that every laptop and phone those people carry is enrolled, and that someone can lock or wipe it without standing next to the chair.
The hour the meeting starts
Ask for the laptop back. Do not wait on the box. From one console, DriveStrike can locate the last check-in, lock the device with a return message, and wipe it if it never shows up on the return scan. That works on Windows, macOS, Linux, iPhone, and Android, which is the mix a real offboarding list has.
Pair the wipe with encryption that is already on the disk. DriveStrike works with BitLocker and can help with VeraCrypt. A locked, encrypted drive is a hardware problem. An open laptop in a former employee’s apartment is a data problem. Remote wipe is the step that runs when the prepaid label is still sitting on the kitchen table.
Protection is priced under $1.50 per device per month. A 30-day free trial is long enough to enroll the machines that will not be in the room the next time a notice goes out.
The part is worth stealing
Replacing the machine is harder than it was a year ago. TrendForce’s October 21 DRAM bulletin says PC memory supply is set to contract next year, vendors are widening fourth-quarter contract quotes, and DDR5 is hard to find on the spot market. On October 22, MemSignal reported a further 10 to 15 percent DDR5 increase warned for that week, and supply-chain accounts of phone makers pulling memory out of old devices because new chips are tight. We wrote the longer version of the price story on October 14. This week the price moved again.
Thieves have already priced the hardware. On the night of October 21, three people broke into an Ingram Micro warehouse near Ahmedabad. India Today reported about Rs 1 crore gone: 40 iPhone 17s, 30 iPhone 16s, 15 Dell laptops, 11 HP laptops, and 36 Apple Watches. Police had not ruled out someone who knew the building. Those boxes were never enrolled. Locate and wipe do not bring sealed inventory back. The crew took them because the devices themselves pay.
Working laptops are the other half of the same week. On October 13, a chip-design office in Ahmedabad lost 47 Dell, Lenovo, HP, and Asus machines while the staff were at a company event. Gujarat Samachar reported an unlocked door and cameras that had been switched off. The sticker price was about Rs 15 lakh. The files were the day’s work. The same night as the warehouse, a Flipkart office in Zirakpur lost 16 phones and 3 laptops, The Tribune reported. Those were devices in use.
Inflation is why the laptop is in the kitchen
The latest price print is still the one that explains the home office. On October 14 the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the all-items index rose 3.7 percent for the twelve months ending September. On October 16 it highlighted gasoline, up 34.2 percent over that year. A Monster survey of 1,005 employed U.S. adults, reported by CNBC on September 24, found that 49 percent had turned down a job at least once because the commute was too long or too costly, and 65 percent said gas prices had changed how they search.
Employers who keep people home are answering that bill. They are also placing the endpoint in kitchens, cars, and shared rooms, off the office network. Fuel costs and remote wipe for remote workers are already on this site. This week’s version is the overlap: remote work is how a firm absorbs inflation, a reduction in force is how it cuts cost, and both leave a managed laptop outside the building.
Name the device before it leaves
On October 23, the Trinidad Express reported that two government Lenovo laptops were missing from Point Fortin West Secondary after a class on October 15. The machines had been recorded under the teacher’s name, not the student who used them. There was no record of who had them. Locate and wipe only work on a device you can name.
Enroll the laptop while it is still yours. If the next notice, the next unlocked office, or the next car door comes first, the data has already left with the hardware you now have to replace at this month’s prices.
Start Your Free 30 Day Trial
The next reduction in force will not collect the laptop for you. Start a free DriveStrike trial and put locate, lock, wipe, and encryption on the devices that are already at home.