5 ms·

Obviously, if this continues at this rate. We'll be able to judge in 3-6 months the full impact. Anyone who tells you otherwise is living in Lalaland. The mai

by oblio 4y ago

Obviously, if this continues at this rate. We'll be able to judge in 3-6 months the full impact. Anyone who tells you otherwise is living in Lalaland. The main thing is figuring out what's the full impact. If it's 10%+ of tech workers, the golden days are over for the vast majority of tech workers.

mathverse 4y ago
I wonder if comments like yours are said in good faith or in fear or out of pure ignorance. Or all of the above combined. Proportionally these numbers would not make a difference in a small European country.
- oblio 4y ago
  These numbers are just the start of the avalanche... There have been a lot of pie-in-the-sky initiatives, especially as the result of the massive cash infusions during Covid. Now all that easy money is going away. The current numbers don't mean much, but they're just the start.
  - nkozyra 4y ago
    That's cyclical, though. The question is always how long the cycle lasts.
    - oblio 4y ago
      True. If recovery is faster than 6-12 months, life is comparatively good. If recovery starts taking a few years, quality of life drops a lot.
  - dsq 4y ago
    It will probably spill over into the rest of the economy. No matter how generous the severance, a fired worker isn't going to be buying new cars, buying houses, or taking expensive vacations.
habinero 4y ago
Y'all. It's not eng being laid off. Or, at least, only marginally. This letter says mainly recruiting and biz depts.
- paulgb 4y ago
  It says those will be “disproportionately affected”, but that could just mean that they represent (say) 10% of the layoffs even though they make up 5% of the team. It doesn't mean that the layoffs are mostly those folks.
  - amusedcyclist 4y ago
    Programmers don't make up more 10% of fb's employee base anyway (a guess) so if you assume that fraction at both fb and twitter you're looking at about 1500 additional people looking for jobs not 15000. Suspect this has little to no impact
    - mrep 4y ago
      No, standard is about half of full time employees are programmers. This website has them at about 42%: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/facebook https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/facebook
      - paulgb 4y ago
        If that’s the company-wide number, I imagine it’s even higher in the Family of Apps and Reality Labs groups (the ones affected by layoffs), because it doesn’t include cross-org functions like facilities or accounting.
    - TchoBeer 4y ago
      >Programmers don't make up more 10% of fb's employee base anyway (a guess) if you check LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/facebook/people/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/facebook/people/), about 33% are engineers.
SideQuark 4y ago
The US alone has over 12 million people in tech. This few workers, for a field that has incredibly low unemployment and lots of open positions, is not going to have a problem absorbing newly unemployed.
- flatiron 4y ago
  I would also believe these lay offs are mainly in recruitment and other HR roles and light on the hard core tech roles.
  - weatherlite 4y ago
    Well Meta severely downsizing their HR department shows you they're not gonna recruit much if at all. It's not a great sign for someone looking for a job...
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Honestly, tech companies that were formed in the last decade have very little to show in terms of value creation. Majority are unprofitable. Most will never make profits in a recession AND tighter monetary environments. At the end of the day, businesses have to generate profits. You can only defer that so long. And most tech companies have been deferring it for a decade now.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
relativ575 4y ago
Were you around the dot com crash? It was much worse than what is going on, layoffs happened left and right. But the future would have never been better for tech jobs. So no, incorrect to say anything for sure.
- dsq 4y ago
  It was a bloodbath. Entire companies vanished like smoke.
- johnvanommen 4y ago
  I've long argued that it was the "creative destruction" of the dot com crash that made so many of the FAANGs possible. For instance, Amazon in Seattle benefited as thousands of engineers found themselves out of work in 2000 and 2001. In addition, AWS was largely inspired by the fact that Sun Microsystems refused to cut their pricing. Amazon was using a lot of Oracle databases and Sun hardware, and when Sun wouldn't negotiate their prices down, Bezos began to figure out A Better Way. Bezos was particularly irked because there was a flood of practically new Sun hardware available (due to the crash) but Sun wouldn't negotiate on price, despite the market being awash in high quality used hardware. Basically Bezos didn't want to spend $80,000 on a new Sun server, but he also didn't want to run hardware that was used.

by oblio 4y ago

mathverse 4y ago

I wonder if comments like yours are said in good faith or in fear or out of pure ignorance. Or all of the above combined. Proportionally these numbers would not make a difference in a small European country.

oblio 4y ago
These numbers are just the start of the avalanche... There have been a lot of pie-in-the-sky initiatives, especially as the result of the massive cash infusions during Covid. Now all that easy money is going away. The current numbers don't mean much, but they're just the start.
- nkozyra 4y ago
  That's cyclical, though. The question is always how long the cycle lasts.
  - oblio 4y ago
    True. If recovery is faster than 6-12 months, life is comparatively good. If recovery starts taking a few years, quality of life drops a lot.
- dsq 4y ago
  It will probably spill over into the rest of the economy. No matter how generous the severance, a fired worker isn't going to be buying new cars, buying houses, or taking expensive vacations.

habinero 4y ago

Y'all. It's not eng being laid off. Or, at least, only marginally. This letter says mainly recruiting and biz depts.

paulgb 4y ago
It says those will be “disproportionately affected”, but that could just mean that they represent (say) 10% of the layoffs even though they make up 5% of the team. It doesn't mean that the layoffs are mostly those folks.
- amusedcyclist 4y ago
  Programmers don't make up more 10% of fb's employee base anyway (a guess) so if you assume that fraction at both fb and twitter you're looking at about 1500 additional people looking for jobs not 15000. Suspect this has little to no impact
  - mrep 4y ago
    No, standard is about half of full time employees are programmers. This website has them at about 42%: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/facebook https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/facebook
    - paulgb 4y ago
      If that’s the company-wide number, I imagine it’s even higher in the Family of Apps and Reality Labs groups (the ones affected by layoffs), because it doesn’t include cross-org functions like facilities or accounting.
  - TchoBeer 4y ago
    >Programmers don't make up more 10% of fb's employee base anyway (a guess) if you check LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/facebook/people/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/facebook/people/), about 33% are engineers.

SideQuark 4y ago

The US alone has over 12 million people in tech. This few workers, for a field that has incredibly low unemployment and lots of open positions, is not going to have a problem absorbing newly unemployed.

flatiron 4y ago
I would also believe these lay offs are mainly in recruitment and other HR roles and light on the hard core tech roles.
- weatherlite 4y ago
  Well Meta severely downsizing their HR department shows you they're not gonna recruit much if at all. It's not a great sign for someone looking for a job...

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Honestly, tech companies that were formed in the last decade have very little to show in terms of value creation. Majority are unprofitable. Most will never make profits in a recession AND tighter monetary environments. At the end of the day, businesses have to generate profits. You can only defer that so long. And most tech companies have been deferring it for a decade now.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

relativ575 4y ago

Were you around the dot com crash? It was much worse than what is going on, layoffs happened left and right. But the future would have never been better for tech jobs. So no, incorrect to say anything for sure.

dsq 4y ago
It was a bloodbath. Entire companies vanished like smoke.
johnvanommen 4y ago
I've long argued that it was the "creative destruction" of the dot com crash that made so many of the FAANGs possible. For instance, Amazon in Seattle benefited as thousands of engineers found themselves out of work in 2000 and 2001. In addition, AWS was largely inspired by the fact that Sun Microsystems refused to cut their pricing. Amazon was using a lot of Oracle databases and Sun hardware, and when Sun wouldn't negotiate their prices down, Bezos began to figure out A Better Way. Bezos was particularly irked because there was a flood of practically new Sun hardware available (due to the crash) but Sun wouldn't negotiate on price, despite the market being awash in high quality used hardware. Basically Bezos didn't want to spend $80,000 on a new Sun server, but he also didn't want to run hardware that was used.