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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

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.
- rileymat2 4y ago
  I hear this a lot lately, and intuitively it is true of startups and businesses that are pre revenue, but I have trouble seeing how it applies to companies with billions in profit.
  - prox 4y ago
    Because it effects the whole economy (afaik) so from housing to banking to any industry. Interest is a compound factor in a complex modern economy. Even big companies have to factor in the effect of interest, even if they haven’t borrowed anything.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Google makes billions in profits by selling ads. Many of the buyers of those ads are affected by interest rates. Therefore, Google is affected by those interest rates.
    - rileymat2 4y ago
      This is fair, but general economic health applies to every company in the economy, and this large cap tech company segment is both profitable and seemingly laying off employees at a higher rate than the economy as a whole. So that blame seems misplaced. From a theoretical perspective at this level of scale the number of engineers in particular does not scale with the ebb and flow of the selling of ads to the degree of the layoffs. Many were for divisions that were not related to ads, except for getting funded by them. Obviously if there is not funding for these other divisions because the ad business dries up there would be large cuts, but these companies are still very very profitable even on lower ad sales. So perhaps they did not have a positive ROI, and that is fine, but a far different reason than waving vaguely at interest rates.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
lkois 4y ago
There was a solid stretch of not knowing if things might get much worse, if the vaccines might fail etc. Some borders have only opened very recently. It's not like all those people who wanted to travel and go out were actually making plans and booking post pandemic flights back in 2020. We're lucky that things are solidly back to normal this soon. Not just the restrictions that kept us inside, but the massive paranoia that made many fear the outside, and some new, worse virus
simonh 4y ago
You’re being very absolutist, people don't have be doing “everything” online for the shift in habits to have a significant effect. Yes on the whole most people do go out and travel again, but on average much less frequently than they used to because they retained the desire but not the same habits. They find they can scratch the itch with fewer outings. All it takes is for people to go out 20% less than they used to, averaged out, and that’s a massive shift in economic terms that can heavily impact businesses.
- ghaff 4y ago
  You're absolutely correct that relatively small differences at the margin can have fairly large knock-on effects. That said, I'm pretty sure the overall picture is that things didn't change as much post-pandemic as many predicted. Travel is pretty much back to normal. Dining out is somewhat back to normal--though you need to factor in inflation effects as well. If I drive into the nearest major city, traffic sure seems back to normal--especially mid-week. The shift to remote seen in tech is something of an outlier.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- jaywalk 4y ago
  > Yes on the whole most people do go out and travel again, but on average much less frequently than they used to You need to provide some data to back this up, because all of the data I've seen (and all of the full flights I've been on) says the opposite.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Eyeballing the TSA's checkpoint volumes (https://www.tsa.gov/travel/passenger-volumes https://www.tsa.gov/travel/passenger-volumes), air travel certainly looks to be back at pre-COVID levels. And that's with a lot of companies watching travel expenses fairly closely.
Lutger 4y ago
I never wanted to commute. Not in busy trains and certainly not getting stuck in traffic jams. I also never wanted to shop or spend time in the supermarket getting spaced out by their weird lightning they install to make you make bad decisions. I do want to visit friends, go out in nature and once in a while eat at a restaurant. But for me, I am so happy to wfh 80% of the time and do 99% of shopping and groceries online, that has certainly stuck. And while I am a bit more of a recluse than most people I know, almost everybody is happy to work from home at least some of the time and does far more online shopping than before the pandemic. Maybe this varies between countries. Or social circles. I certainly see a lot traffic again so people do like to move around again and get stuck in traffic jams a lot, but something _has_ changed for at least _some_ people. A couple of years ago working from home was unheard of, now a company seems out of touch if they don't allow it at all.
- a2tech 4y ago
  Something that the pandemic has rammed home with my wife and I is just how poor the out of home dining experience is in general. The food is lackluster, the ambiance is awful, being surrounded by other people eating is terrible (my wife is a quiet talker and being fat always makes eating in public a shameful experience), so we'd MUCH rather eat at home. The quality of the ingredients are far higher, the food is tastier (my wife is an amazing and experimental cook), and we don't have to yell to be heard. We eat out when we're traveling but thats about it. Eating at home is better in every way.
  - oblio 4y ago
    For people that like to cook for sure it's better. My anecdata would put that number around 20% of people.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Whether the average person likes to cook or not, I'm pretty sure that between lack of easy access to good restaurants and or reluctance/inability to spend on eating out, the majority of people make most meals at home.
rco8786 4y ago
> It honestly sounds like an excuse to fire people. Or leadership has no clue. Neither of these are true. The truth lies somewhere in the grey area between these two things. > Who in their right mind would think they would continue to stay home and do everything online? Hindsight is a helluva drug. Covid has made several lasting, possibly permanent, marks on society and our habits. Nobody could say what those were going to be. The world is a lot nicer when you (correctly) assume that everyone is doing their best with the tools and the information they have to work with.
- ghaff 4y ago
  There were a lot of predictions during the pandemic about permanent change. My observation is that a lot of those changes were either largely temporary (e.g. widespread grocery pickup or delivery) or were mostly limited to limited groups (e.g. full remote work).
  - rco8786 4y ago
    Yes. Hindsight is amazing.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      So is irrational exuberance.
boringg 4y ago
I think you need to broaden your thinking horizons here. The thought in the midst of the pandemic was that it brought ecommerce/payments to the masses who would otherwise follow their old routines. Thus the large hire. I believe the theory was that once everyone starts on this new routine of convenience it would be difficult to return to old patterns. Your comment reads as someone who likes to look back on the past with all the knowledge of today as if it was so incredibly obvious. That said there will be some significant knock on effects from pandemic that will be favorable for those companies however not as large as originally thought.

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.
rileymat2 4y ago
I hear this a lot lately, and intuitively it is true of startups and businesses that are pre revenue, but I have trouble seeing how it applies to companies with billions in profit.
- prox 4y ago
  Because it effects the whole economy (afaik) so from housing to banking to any industry. Interest is a compound factor in a complex modern economy. Even big companies have to factor in the effect of interest, even if they haven’t borrowed anything.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Google makes billions in profits by selling ads. Many of the buyers of those ads are affected by interest rates. Therefore, Google is affected by those interest rates.
  - rileymat2 4y ago
    This is fair, but general economic health applies to every company in the economy, and this large cap tech company segment is both profitable and seemingly laying off employees at a higher rate than the economy as a whole. So that blame seems misplaced. From a theoretical perspective at this level of scale the number of engineers in particular does not scale with the ebb and flow of the selling of ads to the degree of the layoffs. Many were for divisions that were not related to ads, except for getting funded by them. Obviously if there is not funding for these other divisions because the ad business dries up there would be large cuts, but these companies are still very very profitable even on lower ad sales. So perhaps they did not have a positive ROI, and that is fine, but a far different reason than waving vaguely at interest rates.
    - sokoloff 4y ago

lkois 4y ago

There was a solid stretch of not knowing if things might get much worse, if the vaccines might fail etc. Some borders have only opened very recently. It's not like all those people who wanted to travel and go out were actually making plans and booking post pandemic flights back in 2020. We're lucky that things are solidly back to normal this soon. Not just the restrictions that kept us inside, but the massive paranoia that made many fear the outside, and some new, worse virus

simonh 4y ago

You’re being very absolutist, people don't have be doing “everything” online for the shift in habits to have a significant effect. Yes on the whole most people do go out and travel again, but on average much less frequently than they used to because they retained the desire but not the same habits. They find they can scratch the itch with fewer outings. All it takes is for people to go out 20% less than they used to, averaged out, and that’s a massive shift in economic terms that can heavily impact businesses.

ghaff 4y ago
You're absolutely correct that relatively small differences at the margin can have fairly large knock-on effects. That said, I'm pretty sure the overall picture is that things didn't change as much post-pandemic as many predicted. Travel is pretty much back to normal. Dining out is somewhat back to normal--though you need to factor in inflation effects as well. If I drive into the nearest major city, traffic sure seems back to normal--especially mid-week. The shift to remote seen in tech is something of an outlier.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jaywalk 4y ago
> Yes on the whole most people do go out and travel again, but on average much less frequently than they used to You need to provide some data to back this up, because all of the data I've seen (and all of the full flights I've been on) says the opposite.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Eyeballing the TSA's checkpoint volumes (https://www.tsa.gov/travel/passenger-volumes https://www.tsa.gov/travel/passenger-volumes), air travel certainly looks to be back at pre-COVID levels. And that's with a lot of companies watching travel expenses fairly closely.

Lutger 4y ago

I never wanted to commute. Not in busy trains and certainly not getting stuck in traffic jams. I also never wanted to shop or spend time in the supermarket getting spaced out by their weird lightning they install to make you make bad decisions. I do want to visit friends, go out in nature and once in a while eat at a restaurant. But for me, I am so happy to wfh 80% of the time and do 99% of shopping and groceries online, that has certainly stuck. And while I am a bit more of a recluse than most people I know, almost everybody is happy to work from home at least some of the time and does far more online shopping than before the pandemic. Maybe this varies between countries. Or social circles. I certainly see a lot traffic again so people do like to move around again and get stuck in traffic jams a lot, but something _has_ changed for at least _some_ people. A couple of years ago working from home was unheard of, now a company seems out of touch if they don't allow it at all.

a2tech 4y ago
Something that the pandemic has rammed home with my wife and I is just how poor the out of home dining experience is in general. The food is lackluster, the ambiance is awful, being surrounded by other people eating is terrible (my wife is a quiet talker and being fat always makes eating in public a shameful experience), so we'd MUCH rather eat at home. The quality of the ingredients are far higher, the food is tastier (my wife is an amazing and experimental cook), and we don't have to yell to be heard. We eat out when we're traveling but thats about it. Eating at home is better in every way.
- oblio 4y ago
  For people that like to cook for sure it's better. My anecdata would put that number around 20% of people.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Whether the average person likes to cook or not, I'm pretty sure that between lack of easy access to good restaurants and or reluctance/inability to spend on eating out, the majority of people make most meals at home.

rco8786 4y ago

> It honestly sounds like an excuse to fire people. Or leadership has no clue. Neither of these are true. The truth lies somewhere in the grey area between these two things. > Who in their right mind would think they would continue to stay home and do everything online? Hindsight is a helluva drug. Covid has made several lasting, possibly permanent, marks on society and our habits. Nobody could say what those were going to be. The world is a lot nicer when you (correctly) assume that everyone is doing their best with the tools and the information they have to work with.

ghaff 4y ago
There were a lot of predictions during the pandemic about permanent change. My observation is that a lot of those changes were either largely temporary (e.g. widespread grocery pickup or delivery) or were mostly limited to limited groups (e.g. full remote work).
- rco8786 4y ago
  Yes. Hindsight is amazing.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    So is irrational exuberance.

boringg 4y ago

I think you need to broaden your thinking horizons here. The thought in the midst of the pandemic was that it brought ecommerce/payments to the masses who would otherwise follow their old routines. Thus the large hire. I believe the theory was that once everyone starts on this new routine of convenience it would be difficult to return to old patterns. Your comment reads as someone who likes to look back on the past with all the knowledge of today as if it was so incredibly obvious. That said there will be some significant knock on effects from pandemic that will be favorable for those companies however not as large as originally thought.