Following Laurie Company’s purchase of Western Company, 20 Western employees were laid off. The severance pay offered to the recently terminated were used to match the same offered to Laurie Company employees in the previous year. One of the recently terminated Western Company employees, Bill Smith, was offered 5 weeks of severance pay as compensation. He complained that his offer was not fair compared to what was offered to the Laurie Company employees. As a result, a statistician needed to develop a resolution. The statistician would determine the appropriate severance package by analyzing data from a random sample of Laurie Company employees that were also laid off. The variables included the number of weeks of severance and number of years
