Are these warning signs of employers downsizing?

No. Start your own business. Be your own boss.

Sounds like signs of change, not necessarily a downsizing. The only concerning thing would be that the higher ups, who presumably know more of what’s to come, are leaving.

Usually when two companies come together, there’s going to be a lot of overlapping positions and sometimes one company has an advantage in particular areas. If the other company is going to keep their management, that could explain why yours is leaving. At the same time if they’re recommending new hires for your department, that could be a sign that your HR department will be taking on a larger role in the merged company.

Change is definitely coming, and that makes some people nervous, so it’s normal for people to leave.

If you’re looking for more information, I’ve always found that the people taking the office phone calls and transferring them know a lot more than most. Maybe take someone to lunch before making a decision?

I think you work in the tertiary sector @chelle21689? Things are pretty tenuous in that field globally. Lots of change. However, not replacing someone quickly is not necessarily an indication of downsizing. The wheels in such institutions move very slowly. We’ve been waiting for academic appointments to be approved for a couple of years. People upstairs change. Ideas and directions change with them. I think working in HR you are reasonably safe. They will always need people in those areas whereas those working in areas like digitisation, the library etc. are at greater risk. Rather than paper books, universities are changing to digital content. Rather than sending out printed materials, they have students access content digitally.

Try not to stress. Nobody can say they aren’t downsizing, but my experience is that it often takes a long time for decisions to be made about staffing in these unsettled times, and you’ve had a lot of changes in the hierarchy above you.

U didn’t think about that. Taking on more employees from the merge responsible for more benefits and changes will definitely require some help. The previous VP kept ignoring our request.

Yeah, lots of changes. There were people including me kind of keeping our heads low just in case because we don’t know what direction we may be headed that the upper staff have in hand for us.

It sounds to me like if they’re hiring more people because they’re short-staffed, they’re not going to be laying off any time soon. If they’re hiring, they need help, are not looking to eliminate help.

I agree with @jca. I think you are safe, so I wouldn’t do anything right now unless you just want another job. But it’s always good to keep your resume’ updated just in case.

The red flag – to me – is the fact that you work in HR and that your organization is merging with another.

When organizations merge, they generally tend to try to reduce the “common” positions that they share, including HR, purchasing, sales, accounting / finance and even “technology” positions – if the technology of the two organizations is exactly similar. (In the case of my large company which was acquired by an even larger company, one of the reasons that they acquired us was for the technology that they didn’t have, so engineers here are spared. But all of the other “shared services” that I mentioned have been cut drastically.)

In some cases that may not be so true, such as when an American firm acquires a European branch, or vice versa, they may elect to maintain the same HR staffs in each place, because of legal and cultural reasons that make the HR functions different in each location. But in general this is a rule that you can depend upon: If your college is being merged with another, there are “shared services” that are being critically looked at to cut down on redundant staffing that can be accomplished in one place or the other for both places. HR is a prime target.

Do keep your résumé updated – regardless of economic, market or employment conditions – because you never know when you’ll be looking for that next job. (In any case, according to Scott Adams’ excellent book, How to Fail at Nearly Everything and Still Win Big, one of your chief concerns whenever you get a new job should be “looking for your next job”.)

Always keep your resume up-to-date. Start with that as a basic rule.

My experience with mergers is that managers and up go first. Companies rarely need two full sets of management teams. Then look at shared services. Is there duplication of departments? Look at where the new big big boss is from – your organization or the other? that usually gives a clue as to which company’s shared services will be the lead.

The consultant’s report is helpful in that more staff has been identified as a requirement.

Keep that resume updated.

Keep in contact any friendly managers that leave, they know you. Where they land maybe a good spot for you to move to if they let you go from where you are now.

You are telling us they are hiring people at “lower” levels, and have reduced the top levels, if I understood the original question and details. That doesn’t sound like downsizing, it sounds like reorganizing.