#termination severance

A number of multinational companies have recently announced mass layoffs, affecting thousands of employees. Some of the top companies like Twitter, Meta, Google, and Amazon are compensating their employees while terminating their services to save on rising operational expenses. The idea behind making this payment is to ensure that the employees have enough to survive on before they get employed at any other place. However, is the severance pay subject to taxation? if the answer is yes, then how is it taxed?