May have to take forced early retirement (10 years early) [View all]

And it could be for both myself and my husband. Thought we were in fairly stable positions. We have been working at home in IT support in higher ed since the start of the pandemic. We had been hearing scuttlebutt, but today we heard some solid numbers. Our IT department has been asked to cut their budget by a figure that would cut our department staffing by half, and that's after accounting for service and software contracts they could cut, and already cutting misc wage employees and student workers. If they forced every person eligible for retirement, that would only cut it by less than half the amount needed, and that alone would decimate our department, it's support capabilities, and cost the school a huge loss in institutional knowledge.

Today was the first official contact of "If you were offered incentive, would you take early retirement?" I told them "I'd really rather not since it's 10 years before I'm eligible to take anything for retirement without taking a cut, SS is probably not going to be around by then, let alone our 401Ks have taken a tremendous hit, but it would depend on what the incentive package contains. It's especially stressful because we both know that my husband will be getting the same call shortly from his VP."