Your old company might want to hire you back

Boomerang hiring is on the rise, and some CEOs see big benefits in bringing ex-workers back .

Deel's CEO says returning workers can help reinforce other employees' decision to stay.

Another CEO said he lets stars leave, knowing he'll be "calling them in a year to come back."

When Ahmed Mousa wanted to return to the tech firm Deel, he texted CEO Alex Bouaziz a selfie of the two of them with another colleague.

"hey! ready and fully committed. when can we recreate this photo?" Mousa wrote to Bouaziz.

The cofounder quickly replied, writing in part: "Which team"

Roughly 48 hours after that exchange, Mousa, who'd spent about five years at the HR and payroll platform, was talking with a Deel recruiter about the details of his return, nearly four months after he left.

He had become a "boomerang" employee . Mousa is not alone. Rehires at Deel more than doubled between 2024 and 2026, the company said.

Nationally, 3.4% of new hires in the US were boomerangs by the end of 2025, up from 3.1% two years earlier, according to the latest figures from Revelio Labs, which analyzes employment data.

Finding a job remains tough for many desk workers. Returning to a former employer can offer an advantage: Job seekers already have a history and connections inside the organization .

That inside track can be particularly helpful at a company like Deel, which has more than 7,000 employees globally and said it drew 1.3 million job applicants in 2025. The fully remote company projects it will hit 2 million applicants this year.

Despite that huge applicant pool, Bouaziz said former employees who were strong performers and left on good terms can be obvious candidates.

"They understand the company," he said. "They have the right relationship inside of the company to make some things happen faster."

Those workers can also tell Deel why they left and whether the company could make changes to address any issues, Bouaziz said.

While many CEOs see value in boomerang employees, they aren't necessarily eager to welcome back anyone who knocks.

"What I don't like are job-bouncers," said Fred Voccola, the chairman and CEO of AI software company Simpro Group. Still, he said he's happy to rehire someone who behaved honorably and didn't try to "burn the house down when they left."

Simpro Group and Deel aren't the only companies that have made a point of welcoming back former workers. In 2023, Salesforce wooed former employees by handing out stuffed animals wearing T-shirts featuring a boomerang image. That same year, CEO Marc Benioff gave a shout-out to returning workers for helping the company achieve its profit-margin goals sooner than expected.