Shutting Down Clear Linux OS

From my experience, none. "Utterly unfortunately, today was your last day with the company. A separation agreement has been sent to your personal email. Your corporate access is being revoked. Thank you for your contribution!"

Being fired for poor performance is all about ample warnings, issuing a PIP, etc. The company wants the employee back on track. Being laid off is a situation that an employee cannot fix with their efforts. There's no incentive to work this week if it is already known that you are going to be laid off next week, but some employees might consider a prank or even minor sabotage as a helpless act of protest. It's safest to dismiss the laid-off ASAP.

"Employees might sabotage stuff" is something parroted constantly and there's never any proof it is a significant issue.

A single person can cause a lot of damage.

This[0] is just the first result searching and it is from this week too. But it is not uncommon. Insider threats to infrastructure exist at all times of course but a disgruntled employee with administrative access and knowledge of the infrastructure can do a lot of damage quickly.

[0]: https://flaglerlive.com/it-attack-firing/

It's not common, but it absolutely happens: https://www.courthousenews.com/man-behind-s-f-system-lockout...

Early in my career in the mid 2000s, the startup that was on the same floor as mine laid off a QA person, who then showed up the next day and fatally shot the CEO and head of HR. Our CEO called me and told me not to come in that day.

It’s also not legal in much of the world to do that, thankfully. There’s weeks/months to negotiate collectively with the company, possibly organise a strike with those not at risk of redundancy or even just to say goodbye to coworkers.

This works if you have a trade union. I'd hazard to say that at least 99% of software engineers in the US work on "at-will" employment agreements, and do not belong to any unions.

A separation agreement usually stipulates paying 2-3 months worth of salary, and extending the benefits similarly. I don't see how it is worse than spending a couple of extra weeks in the office, and receiving the same.

(Also note that employees that are harder to lay off also get hired with much more reluctance.)

PIP is not “wants the employee back on track”. It’s “documentation of a performance problem and good faith attempt at remedy to justify firing”.