6 ms·

I can't speak to Meta, but Saleforce and Amazon probably needed to hire during the pandemic to keep on with demand. Amazon saw a massive spike in their ecommer

by kypro 4y ago

I can't speak to Meta, but Saleforce and Amazon probably needed to hire during the pandemic to keep on with demand. Amazon saw a massive spike in their ecommerce business due to lockdowns so they had to hire to ensure they had the labour to deal with all the extra orders and deliveries. And even with this extra hiring I remember my deliveries being delayed often in 2020. Saleforce is a weird software company because my understanding is a lot of their staff are there to help clients with integrations, manage accounts and to upsell. Again, assuming Salesforce saw a spike in demand during the pandemic they probably needed more employees because of the nature of their business. My guess is that Apple also had to ramp up manufacturing significantly during the pandemic to meet demand, but obviously they don't employee people directly to do their manufacturing which probably gave them more flexibility when it came to meeting pandemic demand without increasing head count. For the most part I don't understand why people act like tech companies were hiring recklessly during the pandemic. Are people forgetting how much demand was pulled forward by stimulus and lockdowns? These companies were forced to hire or lose market share. That's really the only two options they had. Personally I'd be blaming politicians and the Fed for creating an impossible economic environment to operate in. If you were a company in 2020 your demand was either skyrocketing from lockdowns or at zero because you were forced to close your business. There was no in-between. Tech employees as initial beneficiaries of lockdowns are only now seeing the impact of job losses, but these were happening on mass elsewhere in the economy while lockdowns were in place.

twblalock 4y ago
I definitely blame the Fed. It's pretty hard to be in charge of a public company and say no to the shareholders who want you to take advantage of the sudden bubble in demand. Companies would have been punished for not growing, and now they are being punished if they don't shrink. Who created that perverse system of incentives? The Fed, by making a number of mistakes in the past decade that kept the economy overboosted, by boosting it even more during 2020, and then by taking drastic action to kill the monster they created.
- kypro 4y ago
  Where this logic irritates me the most is in the housing market. Similarly to those who blame companies for over hiring to meet pandemic demand, I've seen some people suggest the average home buyer was being reckless for buying a home during the pandemic, because "they brought the bubble!" I guess it's strange to me how the Fed can pump every asset class to the moon, force companies to over hire to meet demand, and cause a huge inflationary problem for consumers – all while promising not to raise interest rates – then rug pull everyone but get no blame for any of it. Instead I find I'm invited to blame the average business or home owner for being "reckless" for hiring to meet demand for buying a home for their family, while praising the Fed for "doing what's necessary"? Give me a break.
  - juve1996 4y ago
    > I guess it's strange to me how the Fed can pump every asset class to the moon, force companies to over hire to meet demand, and cause a huge inflationary problem for consumers There were no consumer inflation issues for the past decade. It took a once in a life time pandemic supply shock to cause those issues. You're being unfair. It's easy to blame the fed for all your problems. The fact is inflation was stable and the economy was just fine prior to the COVID19 pandemic. I don't think any amount of rate raises prior to 2020 would have had any appreciable impact on what we're facing now. Most of these layoffs are happening in the tech sector. Others are healthy. This isn't an economy wide problem yet. It's hard to not blame the individual companies for poor management. > Instead I find I'm invited to blame the average business or home owner for being "reckless" for hiring to meet demand for buying a home for their family, while praising the Fed for "doing what's necessary"? Give me a break. The fact is if you want what you want and want it now, and everyone else does, you have to pay. It's easy to say "oh they should've raised rates in 2017 or 2014" in 2022. It was much harder to say back then.
    - paulmd 4y ago
      > It's easy to say "oh they should've raised rates in 2017 or 2014" in 2022. It was much harder to say back then. it's funny that you brought this up unprompted because this is the obvious counterargument - the fed really really should have been doing moderate tightening of the interest rate in 2017-2018-2019 and everybody knows it, even you. Everyone said it too, I completely do not get your "it was much harder to say it back then", this was specifically something that everyone said was a bad idea except for one individual (let's call him Individual Number One) who wanted to goose the economy to get numbers up for his re-election the following year, and instead leaned on the fed to cut interest rates instead, throwing gas onto an already-roaring fire. And then when the pandemic hit the fed had absolutely no room to maneuver. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/30/federal-reserve-cuts-interest-rate-third-time-this-year-effort-boost-us-economy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/30/federal-r... this was all extremely predictable, for literally everyone except Individual #1, who didn't really care.

by kypro 4y ago

twblalock 4y ago

I definitely blame the Fed. It's pretty hard to be in charge of a public company and say no to the shareholders who want you to take advantage of the sudden bubble in demand. Companies would have been punished for not growing, and now they are being punished if they don't shrink. Who created that perverse system of incentives? The Fed, by making a number of mistakes in the past decade that kept the economy overboosted, by boosting it even more during 2020, and then by taking drastic action to kill the monster they created.

kypro 4y ago
Where this logic irritates me the most is in the housing market. Similarly to those who blame companies for over hiring to meet pandemic demand, I've seen some people suggest the average home buyer was being reckless for buying a home during the pandemic, because "they brought the bubble!" I guess it's strange to me how the Fed can pump every asset class to the moon, force companies to over hire to meet demand, and cause a huge inflationary problem for consumers – all while promising not to raise interest rates – then rug pull everyone but get no blame for any of it. Instead I find I'm invited to blame the average business or home owner for being "reckless" for hiring to meet demand for buying a home for their family, while praising the Fed for "doing what's necessary"? Give me a break.
- juve1996 4y ago
  > I guess it's strange to me how the Fed can pump every asset class to the moon, force companies to over hire to meet demand, and cause a huge inflationary problem for consumers There were no consumer inflation issues for the past decade. It took a once in a life time pandemic supply shock to cause those issues. You're being unfair. It's easy to blame the fed for all your problems. The fact is inflation was stable and the economy was just fine prior to the COVID19 pandemic. I don't think any amount of rate raises prior to 2020 would have had any appreciable impact on what we're facing now. Most of these layoffs are happening in the tech sector. Others are healthy. This isn't an economy wide problem yet. It's hard to not blame the individual companies for poor management. > Instead I find I'm invited to blame the average business or home owner for being "reckless" for hiring to meet demand for buying a home for their family, while praising the Fed for "doing what's necessary"? Give me a break. The fact is if you want what you want and want it now, and everyone else does, you have to pay. It's easy to say "oh they should've raised rates in 2017 or 2014" in 2022. It was much harder to say back then.
  - paulmd 4y ago
    > It's easy to say "oh they should've raised rates in 2017 or 2014" in 2022. It was much harder to say back then. it's funny that you brought this up unprompted because this is the obvious counterargument - the fed really really should have been doing moderate tightening of the interest rate in 2017-2018-2019 and everybody knows it, even you. Everyone said it too, I completely do not get your "it was much harder to say it back then", this was specifically something that everyone said was a bad idea except for one individual (let's call him Individual Number One) who wanted to goose the economy to get numbers up for his re-election the following year, and instead leaned on the fed to cut interest rates instead, throwing gas onto an already-roaring fire. And then when the pandemic hit the fed had absolutely no room to maneuver. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/30/federal-reserve-cuts-interest-rate-third-time-this-year-effort-boost-us-economy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/30/federal-r... this was all extremely predictable, for literally everyone except Individual #1, who didn't really care.