• Chris Williams is a former VP of HR at Microsoft and podcaster, consultant, and TikTok creator.

• Microsoft, like many other tech companies, recently announced plans to lay off 5% of staff.

• It can difficult to judge your layoff risk, but those close to profits are not typically targeted.

I'm a former VP of HR at Microsoft and have been on both sides of a layoff.

Many are seeing layoffs in the news and wondering about their own risk of being laid off. Every industry, company, even department has a different risk, but some areas are more vulnerable than others.

Here are some general guidelines roughly in order of lowest risk to highest.

No. 1 most safe: Profit-making employees

The basic rule is the closer your job is to the most profitable activities of the company, the lower your risk of layoff.

If you're an essential part of building the most profitable product for your company, your layoff risk is low. When retreating to the core business, companies turn to the quality products that make money.

If you're essential to one of those products, the odds of losing your job are about equal to the risk of failure of the entire company.

No. 2 most safe: HR or finance employees

Often people think of staff services like finance, facilities, or human resources when they think of areas of layoff risk. But those areas run quite lean in most companies, even when times are flush.

There is usually little excess to cut. In addition, HR is essential in the layoff process, and finance is often relied on as the financial status gets more scrutiny.

As such, these areas are rarely the source of major cuts in most layoffs.

And now, here are the 3 employees most at risk during layoffs.

No. 3 most at risk: Event planning or benefits employees

More risky are the activities considered luxuries, like generous benefits and employee perks, and so on.

If you are involved in planning events, for example, those are some of the first things that companies cut when times get tight. People who are part of providing such services are at high risk of being laid off.