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There are hundreds of millions of people in North America. Why do people act like gaining or losing a couple thousand jobs is some kind of earth-shaking develop

by gaur 10y ago

There are hundreds of millions of people in North America. Why do people act like gaining or losing a couple thousand jobs is some kind of earth-shaking development? I get that losing jobs sucks for the people involved, but sometimes I even see US jobs reports delivered as breaking news in national newspapers. Why?

asimuvPR 10y ago
Firing people has an exponential effect.
- gaur 10y ago
  Whatever that means.
  - asimuvPR 10y ago
    It means that when you fire one person it affects many more. When you fire 7,500 there are thousands more affected.
    - gaur 10y ago
      Still uselessly vague. Who is affected? How are they affected? How did you determine the effect is exponential as opposed to, say, logarithmic or linear?
- paulddraper 10y ago
  I believe it has a long-reaching effect, but not "exponential", at least not along any axis I know of. Does firing 1000 people have a more than 2x effect than firing 500? Unless by exponential, you just mean "a lot".
daok 10y ago
It is because people feel close of these kind of news because it can happen to them. People do not like negative situation that they can visualize easily themselves into it. Losing a job is something that can happen to everyone, has a big impact. That is why it's in the news.
danso 10y ago
Depending on the company, it's often a lagging indicator for larger weaknesses in the economy or industry.
alistairSH 10y ago
In the case of aerospace, the jobs are frequently high-skill, high-pay blue-collar. That type of job is quickly disappearing in N. America. So, even though the absolute numbers might be small for any given event, the sum of the losses has a noticeable impact on the economy.
- forgetsusername 10y ago
  >the sum of the losses has a noticeable impact on the economy I get what you're saying, but...does it? If I look at global real GDP, we're going along, business as usual. As the OP says, jobs are gained and lost on a much greater scale, monthly. There's a reason that jobs are being shed at this particular company, and it isn't because we no longer need transportation infrastructure. Bombardier is out, Tesla is in.
  - iamatworknow 10y ago
    >Bombardier is out, Tesla is in. Pump the brakes there. The next time you ride the subway or take a commuter flight you won't be riding on a Tesla train car or aircraft. I get that the average HN visitor is enamored with Elon and Tesla, but c'mon now.
    - tajen 10y ago
      Tesla has 14,000 employees today, expects to hire 6,000 more in the Gigafactory 1.
    - paulddraper 10y ago
      The next time I ride in a spaceship it won't be in a Bombardier one. ;)
    - forgetsusername 10y ago
      >Pump the brakes there. My point is, Bombardier fires and across the map Tesla hires. I'm the furthest thing from a Tesla pumper if you are so inclined as to look at my comment history.
oldmanjay 10y ago
Emotional resonance in the service of opinion manipulation.
Johnny555 10y ago
First, 7,500 is more than "a couple thousand", but even a couple thousand jobs has more impact than just the direct impact of "just a couple thousand jobs" -- unemployed people buy a lot less products and services than employed people - and they often need public assistance, so the public burden is even higher - loss of income tax plus welfare payments. And while many of them will eventually get new jobs, it's going to take some retraining (not a whole lot of demand for train engineers these days), and time.
cerved 10y ago
Because a Fortune Global 500 high-tech company doesn't lay-off 10% of it's workforce very often. When they do it signals an underlying weakness in either the company, sector or economy and is thus newsworthy.
code_sardaukar 10y ago
At least people should recognize the symmetry of hiring and firing. At some point, Bombardier hired each of those 7,500 people. Did this make the news? Were there HN posts praising the management for creating those jobs?

by gaur 10y ago

asimuvPR 10y ago

Firing people has an exponential effect.

gaur 10y ago
Whatever that means.
- asimuvPR 10y ago
  It means that when you fire one person it affects many more. When you fire 7,500 there are thousands more affected.
  - gaur 10y ago
    Still uselessly vague. Who is affected? How are they affected? How did you determine the effect is exponential as opposed to, say, logarithmic or linear?
paulddraper 10y ago
I believe it has a long-reaching effect, but not "exponential", at least not along any axis I know of. Does firing 1000 people have a more than 2x effect than firing 500? Unless by exponential, you just mean "a lot".

daok 10y ago

It is because people feel close of these kind of news because it can happen to them. People do not like negative situation that they can visualize easily themselves into it. Losing a job is something that can happen to everyone, has a big impact. That is why it's in the news.

danso 10y ago

Depending on the company, it's often a lagging indicator for larger weaknesses in the economy or industry.

alistairSH 10y ago

In the case of aerospace, the jobs are frequently high-skill, high-pay blue-collar. That type of job is quickly disappearing in N. America. So, even though the absolute numbers might be small for any given event, the sum of the losses has a noticeable impact on the economy.

forgetsusername 10y ago
>the sum of the losses has a noticeable impact on the economy I get what you're saying, but...does it? If I look at global real GDP, we're going along, business as usual. As the OP says, jobs are gained and lost on a much greater scale, monthly. There's a reason that jobs are being shed at this particular company, and it isn't because we no longer need transportation infrastructure. Bombardier is out, Tesla is in.
- iamatworknow 10y ago
  >Bombardier is out, Tesla is in. Pump the brakes there. The next time you ride the subway or take a commuter flight you won't be riding on a Tesla train car or aircraft. I get that the average HN visitor is enamored with Elon and Tesla, but c'mon now.
  - tajen 10y ago
    Tesla has 14,000 employees today, expects to hire 6,000 more in the Gigafactory 1.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    The next time I ride in a spaceship it won't be in a Bombardier one. ;)
  - forgetsusername 10y ago
    >Pump the brakes there. My point is, Bombardier fires and across the map Tesla hires. I'm the furthest thing from a Tesla pumper if you are so inclined as to look at my comment history.

oldmanjay 10y ago

Emotional resonance in the service of opinion manipulation.

Johnny555 10y ago

First, 7,500 is more than "a couple thousand", but even a couple thousand jobs has more impact than just the direct impact of "just a couple thousand jobs" -- unemployed people buy a lot less products and services than employed people - and they often need public assistance, so the public burden is even higher - loss of income tax plus welfare payments. And while many of them will eventually get new jobs, it's going to take some retraining (not a whole lot of demand for train engineers these days), and time.

cerved 10y ago

Because a Fortune Global 500 high-tech company doesn't lay-off 10% of it's workforce very often. When they do it signals an underlying weakness in either the company, sector or economy and is thus newsworthy.

code_sardaukar 10y ago

At least people should recognize the symmetry of hiring and firing. At some point, Bombardier hired each of those 7,500 people. Did this make the news? Were there HN posts praising the management for creating those jobs?