4 ms·

No one is saying you should have 100% job security, or never be let go / fired. People are saying that these mass layoffs and the way they are conducted are har

No one is saying you should have 100% job security, or never be let go / fired. People are saying that these mass layoffs and the way they are conducted are harmful to society and not as beneficial to the business as CEOs and investors want to believe. Layoffs are not always a result of declining performance. We have seen several now where quarterly results point to increased performance but layoffs still occur as an opportunity to dump workers without much criticism.

techsupporter 4y ago
> People are saying that these mass layoffs and the way they are conducted are harmful to society and not as beneficial to the business as CEOs and investors want to believe. Exactly this, though I also propose as the end of your sentence, "...as CEOs and investors claim." We get told a lot of false or true-but-in-the-abstract motives. The McSweeney's article[0] nails it perfectly for me. I am in the gap in the middle, where stable pensions were on the way out at the same time as companies dropped loyalty to employees into the bin. So I started my working life with the cultural expectation that existed--work for the same company, or maybe two companies, for 40ish years, then leave the workforce knowing I'd be stable--and am now expected to cover all of my years of life solely from the resources I can scrounge together. This, in a word, sucks, and it's part of why layoffs--especially when companies are still hiring in other areas is so jarring to me. (Does it suck more than the generation or two who have come after me, who had neither the expectation of a pension or potential job stability? No! It's far worse for those later than me; their only "benefit" is people younger than me didn't start out with that false hope. They've always known they're screwed unless they can horde as much as possible in as little time as possible.) 0 - https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/macroeconomic-changes-have-made-it-impossible-for-me-to-want-to-pay-you https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/macroeconomic-changes-ha...
- perfecthjrjth 4y ago
  Stable pensions are gone, that's why so much hustle everywhere: ranging from drop shipping to becoming slum lords through BRRRR investing.
  - TapWaterBandit 4y ago
    Stable pensions are gone because they were built on a ponzi scheme based on a demographic moment in history that has now passed. In hindsight those stable pensions were actually extremely immoral in a way. They allowed for a demographic moment where a large portion of workers consumed everything they produced with too little saving while supporting a much smaller number of retired and simultaneously telling themselves the next generation would pay for their retirement needs. Well as 1 millennial all I can say is fuck that. I didn't sign up to support your prolifigacy in your youth and have no intention of doing so (to the best of my ability). If you want a stable pension alongside an often decades long retirement, then start saving when you're young or have a lot of children to support you.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Stable pensions are gone because they were built on a ponzi scheme based on a demographic moment in history that has now passed. They are gone because of a conscious choice, manifested through tax policy, to transfer risk from capital to workers. (To the extent changing demographics would have impacted them in any case, it would have reduced the pension amounts.)
    - techsupporter 4y ago
      > If you want a stable pension alongside an often decades long retirement, then start saving when you're young or have a lot of children to support you. I just want to point out that you're largely proving my point. I got started on saving later in my career because the first few years were spent laboring under the idea that pensions existed. (The 401k was rolled out after I got my first job, for example.) We had the rug pulled, and there are a lot of GenX people who are going to be in a lot worse situation than me, someone who was lucky enough to get into a high-paying career and stay there (that is, I've never been laid off..so far) and deliberately did not have many children or take vacations or have lucked into not getting sick. We are both in the same boat; you just have the "advantage", useless for anything it is, of never having thought you were on land.
      - 4y ago
- Aeolun 4y ago
  For future reference, people hoard things or money. A horde is a large group of living things.
- creakingstairs 4y ago
  I guess I'm "lucky" that I was born in a country who tops the OECD ranking for elderly poverty. Even though I moved to a country with an okay pension scheme, I've never counted on that to last. So I've been saving and investing as much as possible because, as you've said, I've "always known [I'm] screwed unless [I] can horde as much as possible in as little time as possible." But I hate that I have this mindset. It’s useful to a degree but it’s almost become a compulsion for me. Incidentally, I think this is the main reason why my home country has the lowest birth rate in the world. I really wish we could all just, enjoy life without having to worry about poverty in the future. (My home country is South Korea)
WeylandYutani 4y ago
America could have a social safety net like European countries. If people really think it is harmful to society tax companies and implement unemployment benefits. But you and I both know that will neve happen lol.
solatic 4y ago
> People are saying that these mass layoffs and the way they are conducted are harmful to society and not as beneficial to the business as CEOs and investors want to believe. If people could dependably and quickly find new employment after being laid off, with a 100% income replacement safety net for short-term frictional unemployment, getting laid off wouldn't be so stressful and thus wouldn't be as harmful to society. To solution isn't to slow everything down (by making it more difficult to lay people off) but to speed everything up (reduce the personal consequences of getting laid off).
dehrmann 4y ago
> Layoffs are not always a result of declining performance. True, but Google search revenue was down 2% YoY. Youtube ad revenue was down 8% YoY. OpEx was up 10%. Google absolutely saw declining performance while on a hiring binge.
WalterBright 4y ago
Layoffs are sometimes used to avoid saddling employees with the stigma of getting fired. Laying them off also means the employee can get unemployment compensation.

techsupporter 4y ago

> People are saying that these mass layoffs and the way they are conducted are harmful to society and not as beneficial to the business as CEOs and investors want to believe. Exactly this, though I also propose as the end of your sentence, "...as CEOs and investors claim." We get told a lot of false or true-but-in-the-abstract motives. The McSweeney's article[0] nails it perfectly for me. I am in the gap in the middle, where stable pensions were on the way out at the same time as companies dropped loyalty to employees into the bin. So I started my working life with the cultural expectation that existed--work for the same company, or maybe two companies, for 40ish years, then leave the workforce knowing I'd be stable--and am now expected to cover all of my years of life solely from the resources I can scrounge together. This, in a word, sucks, and it's part of why layoffs--especially when companies are still hiring in other areas is so jarring to me. (Does it suck more than the generation or two who have come after me, who had neither the expectation of a pension or potential job stability? No! It's far worse for those later than me; their only "benefit" is people younger than me didn't start out with that false hope. They've always known they're screwed unless they can horde as much as possible in as little time as possible.) 0 - https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/macroeconomic-changes-have-made-it-impossible-for-me-to-want-to-pay-you https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/macroeconomic-changes-ha...

perfecthjrjth 4y ago
Stable pensions are gone, that's why so much hustle everywhere: ranging from drop shipping to becoming slum lords through BRRRR investing.
- TapWaterBandit 4y ago
  Stable pensions are gone because they were built on a ponzi scheme based on a demographic moment in history that has now passed. In hindsight those stable pensions were actually extremely immoral in a way. They allowed for a demographic moment where a large portion of workers consumed everything they produced with too little saving while supporting a much smaller number of retired and simultaneously telling themselves the next generation would pay for their retirement needs. Well as 1 millennial all I can say is fuck that. I didn't sign up to support your prolifigacy in your youth and have no intention of doing so (to the best of my ability). If you want a stable pension alongside an often decades long retirement, then start saving when you're young or have a lot of children to support you.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Stable pensions are gone because they were built on a ponzi scheme based on a demographic moment in history that has now passed. They are gone because of a conscious choice, manifested through tax policy, to transfer risk from capital to workers. (To the extent changing demographics would have impacted them in any case, it would have reduced the pension amounts.)
  - techsupporter 4y ago
    > If you want a stable pension alongside an often decades long retirement, then start saving when you're young or have a lot of children to support you. I just want to point out that you're largely proving my point. I got started on saving later in my career because the first few years were spent laboring under the idea that pensions existed. (The 401k was rolled out after I got my first job, for example.) We had the rug pulled, and there are a lot of GenX people who are going to be in a lot worse situation than me, someone who was lucky enough to get into a high-paying career and stay there (that is, I've never been laid off..so far) and deliberately did not have many children or take vacations or have lucked into not getting sick. We are both in the same boat; you just have the "advantage", useless for anything it is, of never having thought you were on land.
    - 4y ago
Aeolun 4y ago
For future reference, people hoard things or money. A horde is a large group of living things.
creakingstairs 4y ago
I guess I'm "lucky" that I was born in a country who tops the OECD ranking for elderly poverty. Even though I moved to a country with an okay pension scheme, I've never counted on that to last. So I've been saving and investing as much as possible because, as you've said, I've "always known [I'm] screwed unless [I] can horde as much as possible in as little time as possible." But I hate that I have this mindset. It’s useful to a degree but it’s almost become a compulsion for me. Incidentally, I think this is the main reason why my home country has the lowest birth rate in the world. I really wish we could all just, enjoy life without having to worry about poverty in the future. (My home country is South Korea)

WeylandYutani 4y ago

America could have a social safety net like European countries. If people really think it is harmful to society tax companies and implement unemployment benefits. But you and I both know that will neve happen lol.

solatic 4y ago

> People are saying that these mass layoffs and the way they are conducted are harmful to society and not as beneficial to the business as CEOs and investors want to believe. If people could dependably and quickly find new employment after being laid off, with a 100% income replacement safety net for short-term frictional unemployment, getting laid off wouldn't be so stressful and thus wouldn't be as harmful to society. To solution isn't to slow everything down (by making it more difficult to lay people off) but to speed everything up (reduce the personal consequences of getting laid off).

dehrmann 4y ago

> Layoffs are not always a result of declining performance. True, but Google search revenue was down 2% YoY. Youtube ad revenue was down 8% YoY. OpEx was up 10%. Google absolutely saw declining performance while on a hiring binge.

WalterBright 4y ago

Layoffs are sometimes used to avoid saddling employees with the stigma of getting fired. Laying them off also means the employee can get unemployment compensation.