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Banking, law, and trading all do this.
Regardless, It’s 11 PM on a Saturday. Get some sleep.
pwc 1, from what i was told, the partners decide in the national review. the DLs present the case during CRT, then it’s determined whether you’re performing or underperforming. national review is where things are given the tier. if i stand to be corrected, that’s fine. i’m not a DL so my knowledge is secondhand. embarrassed? on an anonymous app? are you serious? 😂 if you’re not here to engage in meaningful discourse, just don’t comment.
Whole concept of up or out started at big law. Wtf are you talking about
Your lack of experience in the world is showing.
I think OP might be happier doing government work.
You do understand that companies are not a make work program, right?
Efficiency matters and it's a holistic multiplier.
Merit matters.
Lol. Other ladders absolutely do this.
O&G engineering is particularly harsh. I just worked with a client who cut 40% in 2015-17, 20% in 2019, 35% in 2021, and 25% in 2025.
The 5-10% rank and yank we see at BCG (remainder of attrition is voluntary) is cake by comparison.
This was a publicly traded E&P, but I will note that it's a shared experience across nearly every name in the space. It's tough to find a shop that hasn't done at least 3 layoffs of 20-40% (each layoff) over the past decade.
Energy engineers (like bankers and consultants) get great pay packages. However, there's also an expectation that they grow and sustain top performance. No sense in paying $300-500k comp to a low performing veteran when you can snag a fresh grad for $150k.
The only difference is that Energy culls the bottom 20-40% every few years vs consulting that culls the bottom 5-10% every year.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
So what you’ve done to tens of thousands of employees and their families all over America is happening to your now? Gee, that’s a shame. I’m loaded with empathy for you…
i’ve never laid anyone off, or been on a project that laid others off. i was on financial & tech projects. your empathy, or lack thereof, makes no difference to anyone on this app
A medical doctor friend of mine told me last week that only 60 percent or so of med students can get a residency after finishing med school.
That figure probably includes students from predatory Caribbean medical schools which have notoriously bad match rates. US MD and DO students have a much higher match rate. According to the American Medical Association, for the 2026 match:
93.5% of U.S. MD seniors matched, the same rate as in 2024 and 2025.
93.2% of U.S. DO seniors matched, up 0.6% from 2025.
It’s a product of being in a relatively high paid field unfortunately. Doctors get cut through med school, lawyers certainly have up or out, bankers 100% have up or out, and as noted above so does O&g. Consulting is no different.
If you want something where you don’t have to compete, look for a middle management role at af500.
You’ll land on your feet, but this wasn’t unknown going in.
I can speak for Oil/gas engineering, aerospace/astronautical industries, healthcare industries: depending on contracts companies have with collective bargaining units (unions), even with union protections, union members also are let go for various reasons and at different intervals of rule-brerak: drug tests are a key vector here.
In other contexts: if performance goals are not met, then, what do you expect? If a division is not performing, that is leadership and they are often let go. So with some, not all, employees of that division. If oil hits a price point that is too low, yes, they cannot afford the workers or staff vs. when oil proces are high enough to afford such staffing. In aerospace and astronautics, if cost over-runs are not handled to the satisfaction of the customer, then that contract can be withdrawn or the contract can also be renegotiated - usually with fewer staff, retaining the key staff that can really make a difference.
Merit (competency) matters. However, even with competent people, sometimes the market is fickle enough to not justify a large team of carefully picked, competent people. That team gets reduced or eliminated altogether, other forces, such as government regulations can also cause massive swings in markets. Businesses must decide how they will respond. Until these complexities are understood and there has been competent responses - repeated - management errors in those responses are worthy of your questions. Mistakes happen, decisions made without the right info lead to theses kinds of errors. THe thing is, it is hard to get the right info and to know what is in your hand is "the right stuff".
ok the key here, which is the point i was making, is that those industries have measurable, tangible reasons. failing a drug test is something you can point to. performance goals not being met are something you can point to. what was the goal & what wasn’t met? so if someone in those companies was let go & the reason was “because they weren’t doing as well as their peers” with no further examples or reasoning, that would be strange, right? exactly, right there.