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.
Why some companies want their exes back
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.
Not everyone gets a return ticket
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.
Voccola said people sometimes leave because "the company just can't offer the person what they need for their career."
He sees a potential long-term payoff in letting good employees leave, and then circling back. "They're going to go somewhere else, learn some new skills, and you'll be damn sure I'm calling them in a year to come back," Voccola said. "That's the way you build lasting companies."
Bouaziz draws lines, too. Someone who left Deel after only a few months or went straight to a competitor might have a harder time returning.
"Obviously, we cannot take back everyone. We tend to focus on the highest performers," Bouaziz said.
The path back can be harder for former employees who didn't leave by choice. Bouaziz said he's received dozens of messages over the years from people who'd been fired for poor performance or other reasons and wanted another chance.
He typically passes those requests along to hiring managers. While a rehire is unlikely, Bouaziz said their willingness to ask is a positive sign about Deel's culture.
An added benefit of boomerangs
Bouaziz said boomerangs can influence how employees who never left feel about the company. Employees sometimes ask returning colleagues why they came back, he said, and hearing their answers can reinforce their own decision to stay.
"Sometimes you don't know what you're missing unless you don't have it anymore," Bouaziz said.
Mousa, 34, wasn't looking to leave Deel when a startup that had courted him for months made a compelling offer. He had friends there and could earn far more — an important consideration as the father of two young children.
"It felt irresponsible not to go take a look," he said.
After a couple of months, Mousa left the startup and completed work trials at a few other companies, though nothing felt right.
Eventually, he started thinking about returning to Deel, where his brother also works. For a couple of days, he couldn't bring himself to ask because he felt embarrassed.
Then Mousa fired off the selfie to Bouaziz.
Mousa's wife, meanwhile, wasn't surprised by the whole episode.
When he left Deel, he said she told him, "You know you're going to go back, right?"
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Tim reports on the workplace and the forces reshaping how people make a living, including AI, remote work, and corporate cost-cutting. His reporting examines how those shifts are changing careers, management, hiring, performance expectations, and workers’ day-to-day lives, particularly in fast-changing fields such as tech.He previously reported on Wall Street and the stock market for the Associated Press.
