7 ms·

Did the pandemic really increase business so much that they had to hire that many people?

by 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago

swixmix 4y ago
The government incentives were based on employees.
- DSingularity 4y ago
  Oh wow. I didn’t even know they went for PPP programs. Crazy.
- unity1001 4y ago
  Wow. That makes it even more horrible. So they did it to get PPP money - the public's money - and now they are dumping the very people who paid them that money. ~160,000 people laid off means up to ~500,000 people involved when you count in the families, relatives etc. This feels more like theft than anything else when you count in the PPP - they took taxpayers' money, they ate it with stock buybacks etc, now they are dumping those taxpayers...
tyre 4y ago
Depends on the company but yes. Stripe, as an example, drastically slowed down hiring when the pandemic hit expecting an economic slowdown. It then turned out that so much commerce moved to online—rather than stopped—so they ramped up hiring to meet demand. The bet that companies like Shopify and Stripe [1] made was that COVID created a “new normal”; much of the economic activity that went online would stay there. They were wrong, so there were layoffs to correct it. [0]: https://news.shopify.com/changes-to-shopifys-team https://news.shopify.com/changes-to-shopifys-team [1]: https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons-email-to-stripe-employees https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons-email...
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Is it called a "bet" when you stand to win big, but if you lose it's the people you hired who've lost, and you don't lose basically anything?
  - tyre 4y ago
    You lose great people, you take a huge hit to culture and productivity, you spent a lot of capital that you otherwise wouldn’t have. It create doubts in leadership and cut projects with maintenance debt. People quit after layoffs, which means attrition isn’t as balanced as when the layoffs were planned. Talent isn’t distributed equal to business need, meaning the company will lose great people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Depending on how it’s executed, the company could burn bridges. Even if they do it well, some people would never come back. It’s not like the people hired were working for free so I’ve never personally put much stock in the, “employees were screwed over.” But again, it depends on some of the items above. If a company is doing well, less-direct revenue teams are fine. In a sketchier environment, not so.
  - anchpop 4y ago
    Who lost? Everyone who got laid off wouldn't have had at a job at all if they weren't hired, and they probably got severance packages for more than the average American makes in a year.
    - kennywinker 4y ago
      > Everyone who got laid off wouldn't have had at a job at all if they weren't hired Maybe I've been lucky, but every time I've been looking for a job I've had AT LEAST two options. People move cities, sell houses, buy houses, give up apartments, plan their finances, and plan their career around their job all the time. Investing a year learning the ropes at a company, finding ways to fit into the structures, etc. only to have the rug pulled out from under you just as you're starting to get the hang of things... > and they probably got severance packages for more than the average American makes in a year. Maybe I've been unlucky, but I've never had a job where my expectation of a severance package was anything more than 2-4 weeks wages.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  I’m not sure I believe that. It honestly sounds like an excuse to fire people. Or leadership has no clue. The biggest thing I got from the pandemic is flexible work arrangements. But I and everyone I knew all wanted to get back out there. Just not back out on public transport to work. We were doing things online because there was no other option. But once the borders opened and restrictions eased, everyone did what they said they would. Travel. Eat out with their friends. Play their old sports. Who in their right mind would think they would continue to stay home and do everything online?
  - largepeepee 4y ago
    The problem with hindsight is people often forget just how chaotic previous events like the entire pandemic was. Even the "experts" were flip flopping globe affecting decisions, we had no idea what the right solution was and how long it would be... 3 months? 6? Permanent? Long term decisions had to be with numerous unknowns, it is clear now they were wrong but I am not certain I would have made the right choice either. I wouldn't go so far to say they wanted an excuse to fire, but they definitely bet the wrong odds.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
      You can however react to changes in circumstances when you get new inform. I got my first dose in Sept 2021. Surely people getting vaccines was the signal that things might start reverting a bit. How many employees did these companies add over 2022? Why didn’t they slow down? Because no one else was slowing down?
  - prox 4y ago
    Tech also depended a lot on the zero interest backed money from investors. Now that interest is up, money costs money, so the situation as changed as well.
    - wyclif 4y ago
      This is precisely the case and it's what is so often missing from the jobs analysis.
- SkyBelow 4y ago
  >They were wrong, so there were layoffs to correct it. Aren't the cuts smaller in size than the increased head count going into the pandemic, which would indicate there was a shift, but not one as large as they had prepared for?
- tracker1 4y ago
  For some companies, hiring more engineering staff probably hurt productivity. Every team added and every engineer added to a team increases the time/effort/communication/planning anything takes. It's often the wrong decision. This of course depends on how work is divided up.
patmcc 4y ago
For Amazon, sure - warehouse workers and drivers. They built a lot of new warehouses, brought a lot of delivery in-house, etc. For the others? Maybe a bit; more remote work, general cloud growth, but yah they overhired.
avereveard 4y ago
In Italy whole industry verticals that were traditionally resistant to change where digitalized, kicking and screaming, from general practice to luxury wholesales Check zoom user growth graph, something like 300% growth was common for the software supporting this transition. Not everything was positioned as good that, but the pull was there.
vkou 4y ago
They didn't have to, but the stock market expected them to. And now that it's 2023, the stock market expects them to do layoffs. Exec compensation is closely tied to share price.
jackpeterfletch 4y ago
I was at the time and continue to be astonished by the lack of foresight when it came to the pandemic. In business management, financial markets, hiring, investment, real estate patterns etc etc. There have been some lasting effects, but it was always clearly a temporary, if not prolonged situation.
- mcphage 4y ago
  > the lack of foresight when it came to the pandemic > it was always clearly a temporary, if not prolonged situation Oh, they knew it was temporary, and they knew they'd do a mass layoff when that time came. This was always the plan.
twelve40 4y ago
of course not, it's just a bullshit excuse. Just like currently none of the faangs businesses are hurting to the point where they just have to get that couch cushion money from layoffs.
tinus_hn 4y ago
The pandemic shifted business from brick and mortar stores to online, along with all the services you need for an online store (payment, logistics) and made people work from home, where they needed devices like a decent computer and webcam and services like Zoom. Those businesses boomed during the pandemic and deflated once it was over.

Did the pandemic really increase business so much that they had to hire that many people?

swixmix 4y ago

The government incentives were based on employees.

DSingularity 4y ago
Oh wow. I didn’t even know they went for PPP programs. Crazy.
unity1001 4y ago
Wow. That makes it even more horrible. So they did it to get PPP money - the public's money - and now they are dumping the very people who paid them that money. ~160,000 people laid off means up to ~500,000 people involved when you count in the families, relatives etc. This feels more like theft than anything else when you count in the PPP - they took taxpayers' money, they ate it with stock buybacks etc, now they are dumping those taxpayers...

tyre 4y ago

Depends on the company but yes. Stripe, as an example, drastically slowed down hiring when the pandemic hit expecting an economic slowdown. It then turned out that so much commerce moved to online—rather than stopped—so they ramped up hiring to meet demand. The bet that companies like Shopify and Stripe [1] made was that COVID created a “new normal”; much of the economic activity that went online would stay there. They were wrong, so there were layoffs to correct it. [0]: https://news.shopify.com/changes-to-shopifys-team https://news.shopify.com/changes-to-shopifys-team [1]: https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons-email-to-stripe-employees https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons-email...

kennywinker 4y ago
Is it called a "bet" when you stand to win big, but if you lose it's the people you hired who've lost, and you don't lose basically anything?
- tyre 4y ago
  You lose great people, you take a huge hit to culture and productivity, you spent a lot of capital that you otherwise wouldn’t have. It create doubts in leadership and cut projects with maintenance debt. People quit after layoffs, which means attrition isn’t as balanced as when the layoffs were planned. Talent isn’t distributed equal to business need, meaning the company will lose great people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Depending on how it’s executed, the company could burn bridges. Even if they do it well, some people would never come back. It’s not like the people hired were working for free so I’ve never personally put much stock in the, “employees were screwed over.” But again, it depends on some of the items above. If a company is doing well, less-direct revenue teams are fine. In a sketchier environment, not so.
- anchpop 4y ago
  Who lost? Everyone who got laid off wouldn't have had at a job at all if they weren't hired, and they probably got severance packages for more than the average American makes in a year.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    > Everyone who got laid off wouldn't have had at a job at all if they weren't hired Maybe I've been lucky, but every time I've been looking for a job I've had AT LEAST two options. People move cities, sell houses, buy houses, give up apartments, plan their finances, and plan their career around their job all the time. Investing a year learning the ropes at a company, finding ways to fit into the structures, etc. only to have the rug pulled out from under you just as you're starting to get the hang of things... > and they probably got severance packages for more than the average American makes in a year. Maybe I've been unlucky, but I've never had a job where my expectation of a severance package was anything more than 2-4 weeks wages.
2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
I’m not sure I believe that. It honestly sounds like an excuse to fire people. Or leadership has no clue. The biggest thing I got from the pandemic is flexible work arrangements. But I and everyone I knew all wanted to get back out there. Just not back out on public transport to work. We were doing things online because there was no other option. But once the borders opened and restrictions eased, everyone did what they said they would. Travel. Eat out with their friends. Play their old sports. Who in their right mind would think they would continue to stay home and do everything online?
- largepeepee 4y ago
  The problem with hindsight is people often forget just how chaotic previous events like the entire pandemic was. Even the "experts" were flip flopping globe affecting decisions, we had no idea what the right solution was and how long it would be... 3 months? 6? Permanent? Long term decisions had to be with numerous unknowns, it is clear now they were wrong but I am not certain I would have made the right choice either. I wouldn't go so far to say they wanted an excuse to fire, but they definitely bet the wrong odds.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    You can however react to changes in circumstances when you get new inform. I got my first dose in Sept 2021. Surely people getting vaccines was the signal that things might start reverting a bit. How many employees did these companies add over 2022? Why didn’t they slow down? Because no one else was slowing down?
- prox 4y ago
  Tech also depended a lot on the zero interest backed money from investors. Now that interest is up, money costs money, so the situation as changed as well.
  - wyclif 4y ago
    This is precisely the case and it's what is so often missing from the jobs analysis.
SkyBelow 4y ago
>They were wrong, so there were layoffs to correct it. Aren't the cuts smaller in size than the increased head count going into the pandemic, which would indicate there was a shift, but not one as large as they had prepared for?
tracker1 4y ago
For some companies, hiring more engineering staff probably hurt productivity. Every team added and every engineer added to a team increases the time/effort/communication/planning anything takes. It's often the wrong decision. This of course depends on how work is divided up.

patmcc 4y ago

For Amazon, sure - warehouse workers and drivers. They built a lot of new warehouses, brought a lot of delivery in-house, etc. For the others? Maybe a bit; more remote work, general cloud growth, but yah they overhired.

avereveard 4y ago

In Italy whole industry verticals that were traditionally resistant to change where digitalized, kicking and screaming, from general practice to luxury wholesales Check zoom user growth graph, something like 300% growth was common for the software supporting this transition. Not everything was positioned as good that, but the pull was there.

vkou 4y ago

They didn't have to, but the stock market expected them to. And now that it's 2023, the stock market expects them to do layoffs. Exec compensation is closely tied to share price.

jackpeterfletch 4y ago

I was at the time and continue to be astonished by the lack of foresight when it came to the pandemic. In business management, financial markets, hiring, investment, real estate patterns etc etc. There have been some lasting effects, but it was always clearly a temporary, if not prolonged situation.

mcphage 4y ago
> the lack of foresight when it came to the pandemic > it was always clearly a temporary, if not prolonged situation Oh, they knew it was temporary, and they knew they'd do a mass layoff when that time came. This was always the plan.

twelve40 4y ago

of course not, it's just a bullshit excuse. Just like currently none of the faangs businesses are hurting to the point where they just have to get that couch cushion money from layoffs.

tinus_hn 4y ago

The pandemic shifted business from brick and mortar stores to online, along with all the services you need for an online store (payment, logistics) and made people work from home, where they needed devices like a decent computer and webcam and services like Zoom. Those businesses boomed during the pandemic and deflated once it was over.