Middle Manager Layoffs Surge in US With Firms Questioning Value

The latest corporate buzzword is efficiency, and that hasn’t been good for much-maligned middle managers. If you’ve got direct reports, you should probably be looking over your shoulder.

“It’s always been a joke with my peers that middle management is the most dangerous position to be in,” said Cody Sandell, who lost his job late last year as a director of product management at a fintech startup.

Middle managers — defined as non-executives who oversee employees — made up almost a third of layoffs, up from 20% in 2018, according to an analysis by Live Data Technologies for Bloomberg News. ...