6 ms·

I’ve been checking layoffs.fyi every day and it is incredibly bleak

imdsm 6y ago
https://layoffs.fyi/ https://layoffs.fyi/ for the lazy
PaulRobinson 6y ago
This is looking 2001-dot-com-crash bad, but much, much faster. It's worth remembering there are plenty of companies not laying people off, and "normal" will return eventually. That said, I was watching The Big Short yesterday, and a line that I had noted before haunted me even more: "For every 1% unemployment goes up [in the USA], 40,000 people die". Stay safe, stay positive.
- dustincoates 6y ago
  Things might be different now in ways that now have a different impact, but if you want to feel better, there's evidence that the Great Depression did not cause an increase in people dying[1]. > Population health did not decline and indeed generally improved during the 4 years of the Great Depression, 1930–1933, with mortality decreasing for almost all ages, and life expectancy increasing by several years in males, females, whites, and nonwhites. (Although, significantly, it does note that suicides increased, and another study found no increase in life expectancy, but no real change outside of suicides and car accidents.[2]) 1: https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290 2: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110324202055.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110324202055.h...
  - fock 6y ago
    and the thing about suicides is, that the rates are really low compared to everything else... (even the flu... - at least in non-gun countries). I think this is mainly fearmongering by the upper 0.1% seeing that now they might have to bear the "risk" they are always claiming to shoulder when taking in enormous returns on their capital... (e.g. in Germany currently most car-companies (BMW and VW are both largely family-owned) still pay their dividends, while their employees are getting unemployment benefits from the state...). In the end history tells us, that people generally seem to prefer to stay alive however low the odds are. If this has significantly changed in the last 50 years, maybe we should think about what has changed that – I seriously doubt that a "let's go back to business" is the right approach in that case.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > "For every 1% unemployment goes up [in the USA], 40,000 people die". I have seen that line too, but I wonder how substantiated this is? Is there any data to support it?
  - primitivesuave 6y ago
    There is the coping hypothesis, that coping with unemployment causes unhealthy behavior and death [1] and the latent sickness hypothesis [2], that unhealthy behavior is a cause of both unemployment and death. Anecdotally it makes sense - if you are an alcoholic or drug addict you are likely to lose your job as well as die as a result of your behavior - but the actual number of people who die is ostensibly hard to measure. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/#R41 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/#R41 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/#R65 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/#R65
    - tr33house 6y ago
      I'm guessing there'll be a lesser need to cope this time around since a lot of people will know a lot of other people who are unemployed. All of a sudden being unemployed might be the new normal and we'll all help each other cope
- westoncb 6y ago
  > This is looking 2001-dot-com-crash bad, but much, much faster. Also probably much more transient, no? Is there a reason to think this trend would continue beyond say... six months? (or whenever quarantine measures are mostly relaxed).
  - xupybd 6y ago
    That depends how many companies survive the six months. The good thing is it should reset things to a boom time in 5 to 10 years.
  - petercooper 6y ago
    Even if it's transient, I think you'll see a lot of companies use this situation as an excuse to clear the decks of what they perceive to be bad hires or underperforming employees that they'd otherwise let limp on in good times.
  - Scarblac 6y ago
    The Netherlands tested for antibodies in blood donor serum last week, preliminary result is that 3% of people have them. And not all of them show full immunity. If we relax quarantine measures, the virus just comes back immediately. This is going to stay with us for years.
    - 0xFFC 6y ago
      > And not all of them show full immunity. Where did you get that number? This seems more like propaganda than scientific claim.
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  > Assessing the short term health impact of the Great Recession in the European Union: a cross-country panel analysis > Results > Overall, during the recent recession, an increase of one percentage point in the standardised unemployment rate has been associated with a statistically significant decrease in the following mortality rates: all-cause-mortality (3.4%), cardiovascular diseases (3.7%), cirrhosis- and chronic liver disease-related mortality (9.2%), motor vehicle accident-related mortality (11.5%), parasitic infection-related mortality (4.1%), but an increase in the suicide rate (34.1%). In general, the effects were more marked in countries with lower levels of social protection, compared to those with higher levels. Conclusions > An increase in the unemployment rate during the Great Recession has had a beneficial health effect on average across EU countries, except for suicide mortality. Social protection expenditures appear to help countries “smooth” the health response to a recession, limiting health damage but also forgoing potential health gains that could otherwise result. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743514001224 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009174351...
  - indecisive_user 6y ago
    > An increase in the unemployment rate during the Great Recession has had a beneficial health effect on average across EU countries. Many animals live longer in captivity than in the wild. Restricting your caloric intake as much as possible will prolong your lifespan. There's more to health than just how long you live.
  - forgotmylogin2 6y ago
    That seems pretty disingenuous given that the Great Depression was the lynchpin for World War 2 which directly resulted in the deaths of 75 million people.
    - crowbahr 6y ago
      That's a cherry picking fallacy and unrelated to the effects of the Great Recession. We do not live in a 1930s world of belligerent alliances itching for a chance to bloody someone up. Wars between the big powers are now economic and political. Nobody wants nuclear annihilation.
- chx 6y ago
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28772108 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28772108 > Did the Great Recession affect mortality rates in the metropolitan United States? Effects on mortality by age, gender and cause of death. > Our finding that all-cause mortality decreased during the Great Recession is consistent with previous studies. And yes some specific mortality like cancer did increase because of the broken -- profit based -- health care system. But otherwise, no.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    Of course ironically prosperity can be more dangerous dirtectly as risky "vices" like extreme sports and fast cars are expensive. The Kennedies tend to die doing activities restricted to or done far more often by the privledged. Extreme sports may technically have a long term boost on life expextancy (from fitness) but short term would make a spike in accident deaths. I guess money is sort of the same way - better outcomes from affording healthcare but the temptation to take risks results in more immediate deaths.
- wlll 6y ago
  Although I enjoyed the film I found this article more interesting as a story, and more useful as a soource of information too: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/04/wall-street-excerpt-201004 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/04/wall-street-excerpt-...
- protomyth 6y ago
  Given that peopled art forced to stay at home with families, I am a little worried that other negative statistics are going to rise. I expect we will see an increase in divorces and abuses of various types. A lot of people need, but are not getting personal space.
- reissbaker 6y ago
  I don't think this is dot-com-crash bad yet, if you mean that tech workers specifically are in dire straits. The major Bay Area employers like Google, FB, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, etc haven't had layoffs; it's mostly small startups. Some of the large companies are even outperforming currently (Amazon and Netflix are at all-time highs). But if you mean dot-com-crash bad in terms of the economy in general crashing, oh man are you right. This is an economic free-fall for most of America.
- raghava 6y ago
  > This is looking 2001-dot-com-crash bad, but much, much faster. "fail fast; fail often" seems ominously dark for the circumstance.
- mpweiher 6y ago
  Mortality declined not just during the Great Recession, but also during the Great Depression. https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290
- fma 6y ago
  Meanwhile the Nasdaq is roaring back from a bottom...Someone is making a lot of money on the crash and the government printing press. It ain't me.
  - thorwasdfasdf 6y ago
    It's pretty common, i heard realvision say traders make most of their money when crashes happen.
  - jawns 6y ago
    You may be interested in the short-squeeze hypothesis, which suggests the current rally was triggered by technical factors and will soon peak and evaporate.
FridgeSeal 6y ago
And as far as I can tell that’s America only, nevermind Europe and Australia...
- ajdlinux 6y ago
  Or non-Western countries! And the list is just startups, too - they're obviously more vulnerable in many ways to financial shocks than large companies, but large corporate layoffs are going to be where the big numbers are.
- riffraff 6y ago
  Australia apparently saw a minor rise in employment[0] for now. https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/australia-unexpectedly-adds-jobs-unemployment-edges-up-to-52-25/ar-BB12GV7c https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/australia-unexpect...
  - aetherspawn 6y ago
    Our government basically hasn't shut down our economy. To quote, "all jobs are essential services".
    - ratww 6y ago
      This is good news, considering they've apparently been also able to reduce the number of new confirmed cases [1]. [1] https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/ https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/
      - akdor1154 6y ago
        Yep. social gatherings / hospitality industry / gyms etc are banned, and anyone who can work from home is doing so, but you still can leave your house for "essential reasons", e.g. exercise, buying takeaway lunch every day. many retail stores and public transport are still functioning. I think it's our - low density - government actually listening to scientists and reacting quickly and non-ideologically.
andrewSC 6y ago
What I don't quite understand is why startups who either just received funding or companies who were doing reasonably well decide to do mass layoffs during economic downturns? I mean they provide $reasons but I have a hard time taking them at face value.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rio517 6y ago
  Keep in mind: - A lot if them are not profitable. - They don't know how long this will last. - Many planned on growing into profitability over n months and expected they could raise more money if needed. - Now, there is no growth for many and contractions. - Investment money is drying up - they might not have 2 years at their current burn rate to get to profitable status. In the end, it can be about survival. Their pre coronavirus burn rates are not sustainable. Of course, for some, it is also a continent way to shed staff who appear to be underperforming, freeze raises, and ask more of their employees.
- gumby 6y ago
  If you just raised 18 months of cash you might find it prudent today to cut burn by 30% to turn that into 24 months of runway.
- bostik 6y ago
  The money might not be in the bank. For many (even unicornish) startups the funding is released in tranches, usually tied to certain performance metrics. With drastically reduced revenue, new customer flow all dried up, and even marketing result graphs simulating nosedives, there aren't that many milestones you could hit. If [enough] performance milestones are missed, company's next batch of on-paper funding pot may not be released.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  Non-essential demand has been down and even those who are essential suffer from a logistical hellscape. Unless you are involved with COVID mitigation directly now is not the time to attempt growth. Even those which service those stuck at home have to suffer from the rest of the economy collapsing. Advertising rates are in the toliet because they can't do much good to bring in sales.
omk 6y ago
Are they seriously listing down emails and mobile numbers of the people layed off? Is there no privacy concern here or am I missing the bigger picture?
- chungus 6y ago
  I don't really understand that either. My best guess is potential employers can contact them directly? Still I would put a layer in between, i.e. LinkedIn.
- dddbbb 6y ago
  Are those not submitted by the people themselves to aid in their job search?
akeck 6y ago
layoffs.fyi is an email harvester's dream...
- seph-reed 6y ago
  I'm not seeing it. Where's the leak?
  - akeck 6y ago
    Click on the spreadsheets
    - seph-reed 6y ago
      Lol. Thanks.
nunez 6y ago
Didn't know this site existed. Thanks!

https://layoffs.fyi/ https://layoffs.fyi/ for the lazy

This is looking 2001-dot-com-crash bad, but much, much faster. It's worth remembering there are plenty of companies not laying people off, and "normal" will return eventually. That said, I was watching The Big Short yesterday, and a line that I had noted before haunted me even more: "For every 1% unemployment goes up [in the USA], 40,000 people die". Stay safe, stay positive.

dustincoates 6y ago
Things might be different now in ways that now have a different impact, but if you want to feel better, there's evidence that the Great Depression did not cause an increase in people dying[1]. > Population health did not decline and indeed generally improved during the 4 years of the Great Depression, 1930–1933, with mortality decreasing for almost all ages, and life expectancy increasing by several years in males, females, whites, and nonwhites. (Although, significantly, it does note that suicides increased, and another study found no increase in life expectancy, but no real change outside of suicides and car accidents.[2]) 1: https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290 2: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110324202055.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110324202055.h...
- fock 6y ago
  and the thing about suicides is, that the rates are really low compared to everything else... (even the flu... - at least in non-gun countries). I think this is mainly fearmongering by the upper 0.1% seeing that now they might have to bear the "risk" they are always claiming to shoulder when taking in enormous returns on their capital... (e.g. in Germany currently most car-companies (BMW and VW are both largely family-owned) still pay their dividends, while their employees are getting unemployment benefits from the state...). In the end history tells us, that people generally seem to prefer to stay alive however low the odds are. If this has significantly changed in the last 50 years, maybe we should think about what has changed that – I seriously doubt that a "let's go back to business" is the right approach in that case.
ekianjo 6y ago
> "For every 1% unemployment goes up [in the USA], 40,000 people die". I have seen that line too, but I wonder how substantiated this is? Is there any data to support it?
- primitivesuave 6y ago
  There is the coping hypothesis, that coping with unemployment causes unhealthy behavior and death [1] and the latent sickness hypothesis [2], that unhealthy behavior is a cause of both unemployment and death. Anecdotally it makes sense - if you are an alcoholic or drug addict you are likely to lose your job as well as die as a result of your behavior - but the actual number of people who die is ostensibly hard to measure. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/#R41 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/#R41 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/#R65 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070776/#R65
  - tr33house 6y ago
    I'm guessing there'll be a lesser need to cope this time around since a lot of people will know a lot of other people who are unemployed. All of a sudden being unemployed might be the new normal and we'll all help each other cope
westoncb 6y ago
> This is looking 2001-dot-com-crash bad, but much, much faster. Also probably much more transient, no? Is there a reason to think this trend would continue beyond say... six months? (or whenever quarantine measures are mostly relaxed).
- xupybd 6y ago
  That depends how many companies survive the six months. The good thing is it should reset things to a boom time in 5 to 10 years.
- petercooper 6y ago
  Even if it's transient, I think you'll see a lot of companies use this situation as an excuse to clear the decks of what they perceive to be bad hires or underperforming employees that they'd otherwise let limp on in good times.
- Scarblac 6y ago
  The Netherlands tested for antibodies in blood donor serum last week, preliminary result is that 3% of people have them. And not all of them show full immunity. If we relax quarantine measures, the virus just comes back immediately. This is going to stay with us for years.
  - 0xFFC 6y ago
    > And not all of them show full immunity. Where did you get that number? This seems more like propaganda than scientific claim.
barry-cotter 6y ago
> Assessing the short term health impact of the Great Recession in the European Union: a cross-country panel analysis > Results > Overall, during the recent recession, an increase of one percentage point in the standardised unemployment rate has been associated with a statistically significant decrease in the following mortality rates: all-cause-mortality (3.4%), cardiovascular diseases (3.7%), cirrhosis- and chronic liver disease-related mortality (9.2%), motor vehicle accident-related mortality (11.5%), parasitic infection-related mortality (4.1%), but an increase in the suicide rate (34.1%). In general, the effects were more marked in countries with lower levels of social protection, compared to those with higher levels. Conclusions > An increase in the unemployment rate during the Great Recession has had a beneficial health effect on average across EU countries, except for suicide mortality. Social protection expenditures appear to help countries “smooth” the health response to a recession, limiting health damage but also forgoing potential health gains that could otherwise result. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743514001224 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009174351...
- indecisive_user 6y ago
  > An increase in the unemployment rate during the Great Recession has had a beneficial health effect on average across EU countries. Many animals live longer in captivity than in the wild. Restricting your caloric intake as much as possible will prolong your lifespan. There's more to health than just how long you live.
- forgotmylogin2 6y ago
  That seems pretty disingenuous given that the Great Depression was the lynchpin for World War 2 which directly resulted in the deaths of 75 million people.
  - crowbahr 6y ago
    That's a cherry picking fallacy and unrelated to the effects of the Great Recession. We do not live in a 1930s world of belligerent alliances itching for a chance to bloody someone up. Wars between the big powers are now economic and political. Nobody wants nuclear annihilation.
chx 6y ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28772108 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28772108 > Did the Great Recession affect mortality rates in the metropolitan United States? Effects on mortality by age, gender and cause of death. > Our finding that all-cause mortality decreased during the Great Recession is consistent with previous studies. And yes some specific mortality like cancer did increase because of the broken -- profit based -- health care system. But otherwise, no.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  Of course ironically prosperity can be more dangerous dirtectly as risky "vices" like extreme sports and fast cars are expensive. The Kennedies tend to die doing activities restricted to or done far more often by the privledged. Extreme sports may technically have a long term boost on life expextancy (from fitness) but short term would make a spike in accident deaths. I guess money is sort of the same way - better outcomes from affording healthcare but the temptation to take risks results in more immediate deaths.
wlll 6y ago
Although I enjoyed the film I found this article more interesting as a story, and more useful as a soource of information too: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/04/wall-street-excerpt-201004 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/04/wall-street-excerpt-...
protomyth 6y ago
Given that peopled art forced to stay at home with families, I am a little worried that other negative statistics are going to rise. I expect we will see an increase in divorces and abuses of various types. A lot of people need, but are not getting personal space.
reissbaker 6y ago
I don't think this is dot-com-crash bad yet, if you mean that tech workers specifically are in dire straits. The major Bay Area employers like Google, FB, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, etc haven't had layoffs; it's mostly small startups. Some of the large companies are even outperforming currently (Amazon and Netflix are at all-time highs). But if you mean dot-com-crash bad in terms of the economy in general crashing, oh man are you right. This is an economic free-fall for most of America.
raghava 6y ago
> This is looking 2001-dot-com-crash bad, but much, much faster. "fail fast; fail often" seems ominously dark for the circumstance.
mpweiher 6y ago
Mortality declined not just during the Great Recession, but also during the Great Depression. https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290
fma 6y ago
Meanwhile the Nasdaq is roaring back from a bottom...Someone is making a lot of money on the crash and the government printing press. It ain't me.
- thorwasdfasdf 6y ago
  It's pretty common, i heard realvision say traders make most of their money when crashes happen.
- jawns 6y ago
  You may be interested in the short-squeeze hypothesis, which suggests the current rally was triggered by technical factors and will soon peak and evaporate.

FridgeSeal 6y ago

And as far as I can tell that’s America only, nevermind Europe and Australia...

ajdlinux 6y ago
Or non-Western countries! And the list is just startups, too - they're obviously more vulnerable in many ways to financial shocks than large companies, but large corporate layoffs are going to be where the big numbers are.
riffraff 6y ago
Australia apparently saw a minor rise in employment[0] for now. https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/australia-unexpectedly-adds-jobs-unemployment-edges-up-to-52-25/ar-BB12GV7c https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/australia-unexpect...
- aetherspawn 6y ago
  Our government basically hasn't shut down our economy. To quote, "all jobs are essential services".
  - ratww 6y ago
    This is good news, considering they've apparently been also able to reduce the number of new confirmed cases [1]. [1] https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/ https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/
    - akdor1154 6y ago
      Yep. social gatherings / hospitality industry / gyms etc are banned, and anyone who can work from home is doing so, but you still can leave your house for "essential reasons", e.g. exercise, buying takeaway lunch every day. many retail stores and public transport are still functioning. I think it's our - low density - government actually listening to scientists and reacting quickly and non-ideologically.

andrewSC 6y ago

What I don't quite understand is why startups who either just received funding or companies who were doing reasonably well decide to do mass layoffs during economic downturns? I mean they provide $reasons but I have a hard time taking them at face value.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rio517 6y ago
Keep in mind: - A lot if them are not profitable. - They don't know how long this will last. - Many planned on growing into profitability over n months and expected they could raise more money if needed. - Now, there is no growth for many and contractions. - Investment money is drying up - they might not have 2 years at their current burn rate to get to profitable status. In the end, it can be about survival. Their pre coronavirus burn rates are not sustainable. Of course, for some, it is also a continent way to shed staff who appear to be underperforming, freeze raises, and ask more of their employees.
gumby 6y ago
If you just raised 18 months of cash you might find it prudent today to cut burn by 30% to turn that into 24 months of runway.
bostik 6y ago
The money might not be in the bank. For many (even unicornish) startups the funding is released in tranches, usually tied to certain performance metrics. With drastically reduced revenue, new customer flow all dried up, and even marketing result graphs simulating nosedives, there aren't that many milestones you could hit. If [enough] performance milestones are missed, company's next batch of on-paper funding pot may not be released.
Nasrudith 6y ago
Non-essential demand has been down and even those who are essential suffer from a logistical hellscape. Unless you are involved with COVID mitigation directly now is not the time to attempt growth. Even those which service those stuck at home have to suffer from the rest of the economy collapsing. Advertising rates are in the toliet because they can't do much good to bring in sales.

omk 6y ago

Are they seriously listing down emails and mobile numbers of the people layed off? Is there no privacy concern here or am I missing the bigger picture?

chungus 6y ago
I don't really understand that either. My best guess is potential employers can contact them directly? Still I would put a layer in between, i.e. LinkedIn.
dddbbb 6y ago
Are those not submitted by the people themselves to aid in their job search?

akeck 6y ago

layoffs.fyi is an email harvester's dream...

seph-reed 6y ago
I'm not seeing it. Where's the leak?
- akeck 6y ago
  Click on the spreadsheets
  - seph-reed 6y ago
    Lol. Thanks.

nunez 6y ago

Didn't know this site existed. Thanks!