In the age of artificial intelligence, departing a company doesn’t necessarily mean a permanent goodbye.
On Wednesday, Themoneytimes reported that Amazon is attempting to recruit workers it previously let go. Other firms are also reaching out to ex-employees. A small tech CEO admitted she cut staff expecting AI to fill the gaps, only to regret the decision. Another company saw its boomerang hires more than double over the past two years.
In a related shift, Meta has asked some recently reassigned workers to return to management roles.
Call it an AI-era surge in boomerang hiring.
Rehiring former staff is on the rise broadly. Employment data firm Revelio Labs found that by the end of 2025, 3.4% of new U.S. hires were former employees, up from 3.1% two years prior.
This trend coincides with companies increasingly citing AI as a reason for layoffs. Through July, nearly one in four announced job cuts were attributed to AI, making it the top cited reason for the fifth straight month, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Amazon spokesperson Haley Silva said the company consistently seeks to reconnect with former Amazonians for open positions. ‘Rehiring former employees is a normal, long-standing part of how we recruit,’ she stated.
Like ‘sneaking back’
Syndio CEO Maria Colacurcio regretted an AI-driven restructuring. Weeks after laying off five employees, including labor economists and domain experts, she realized the company had moved too fast. She has since rehired one for a newly created role.
‘We moved really fast,’ she told Themoneytimes. ‘The technology wasn’t quite there yet.’
Colacurcio acknowledged she should have given some laid-off workers a chance to transition into new roles created during the reorganization. She had expected other employees to fill those spots, but few were willing.
‘One mistake is assuming too quickly that people in a certain role can’t evolve,’ Colacurcio said. ‘With the right AI tools and training, they can adapt.’
Rehired employee Jonathan Vidales of Washington, D.C., said he wished Syndio had considered him for his current role before the layoff. After former colleagues alerted him to the opening two months later, he reapplied because, he said, ‘I wasn’t ready to go.’
Vidales, who joined Syndio in 2021 as a pay equity consultant, described returning as ‘sneaking back into the house after I got kicked out.’ Now a global account partner, he says AI has simplified parts of his work but not replaced it.
‘AI can handle many tedious tasks,’ he said. ‘But human judgment and relationships remain essential,’ especially when working directly with clients.
Familiar territory
Former employees can be attractive hires, whether they were laid off or left voluntarily.
At Deel, an HR and payroll platform, CEO Alex Bouaziz welcomes back workers who departed on good terms. The company said its boomerang hires more than doubled between 2024 and 2026.
Returning employees, he said, ‘understand the company’ and ‘have the right relationships inside the company to make some things happen faster.’
Other executives echoed similar benefits. David McJannet, cofounder of AI-agent platform Dome Systems, said he watches for former high performers because they ‘come with contextual understanding that’s super super valuable.’
Similarly, Freshworks CEO Dennis Woodside said employees who return after building products elsewhere often bring back expertise that ‘can be super valuable for us.’
Boomerang hires are common in Big Tech and beyond, exemplified by top investor recruiter Matt Giannini, who is rejoining Citadel for a third time.
Returning to a former employer isn’t for everyone.
Software engineer Jack Nguyen left Amazon in 2021, returned a year later, and was laid off in early 2026. Dave Lewis, a product manager and sales executive, was laid off by Amazon in 2022, rehired the next year, then joined Microsoft, where he was laid off again.
Not all workers want to return. After Google laid off Rob Waters last year, the company encouraged him to apply for a new role. He declined the offer to pursue his own venture. The layoff, Waters said, ‘ripped the Band-Aid off.’