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Did all these companies that are going through multiple rounds of layoffs decide specifically to spread out the pain over multiple rounds, or did they just fail

Did all these companies that are going through multiple rounds of layoffs decide specifically to spread out the pain over multiple rounds, or did they just fail to predict how many people would need to be let go?

klodolph 4y ago
The way it was worded—it sounds like a failure to predict how many roles they wanted to eliminate. I’m sure they also wanted to hedge—wait things out and see if conditions changed.
shmatt 4y ago
They're only now (when this was decided, maybe a month or 2 ago) figuring out the natural attrition in the next couple of years will be extremely close to 0%, down from 15% or even higher
TylerE 4y ago
A cynical person might suggest that the 1st round was intended to tank morale and trigger mass resignations.
ovis 4y ago
At least according to Amazon, "Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago. The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible." (From the announcement.)
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Everything on any such announcement is a lie.
  - TheSoftwareGuy 4y ago
    This seems overly cynical. It makes a lot of sense to wait until teams have completed their planning. It allows the executives to sift through the proposed projects and decide specifically which ones to cut. Also, it is pretty easy to confirm with anybody who works at AWS that OP2 planning process did in fact complete recently
newaccount2023 4y ago
HN seems to have this idea that layoffs are one and done who is to say the reason why? maybe Andy Jassey just went for a long walk and came back and decided 9k more were out the door for all you know he may want 25k more gone and is just figuring out the how/when
blagie 4y ago
My philosophy on multiple rounds (which I'm not attributing to big techs): 1) Any business can tolerate a 5-20% layoff without loss to business continuity. 2) A 50% layoff results in losing critical knowledge about how to keep the business working. 3) Therefore, if you want to lose 50% of your employees, it makes sense to do it in rounds. I can give similar logic for larger layoffs too, mostly having to do with impact on employee perception. If I'm in a business who has layoffs every 3 months, I will be sending out resumes to more stable places, to the extent they exist.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  > Any business can tolerate a 5-20% layoff without loss to business continuity. Does adding 2 months between your 5-20% rounds recover that continuity? I can't make my mind. It still looks like an incredibly stupid thing to do, but it will spread enough knowledge to keep your lights on. The problem is that "keep your lights on" is the only thing people will care about while overworked looking for another job.
  - blagie 4y ago
    > Does adding 2 months between your 5-20% rounds recover that continuity? Yes. The knowledge is consolidated in fewer people that way. > It still looks like an incredibly stupid thing to do, but it will spread enough knowledge to keep your lights on. The problem is that "keep your lights on" is the only thing people will care about while overworked looking for another job Agreed. However, if a business is bleeding $1M per month and has $10M in savings, "keeping the lights on" for a while is considered success. I will mention: I'm not advocating for a specific course of action. I'm merely trying to explain one way of reasoning. Personally, I think there are usually out-of-the-box solutions which avoid layoffs, especially in situations similar to big tech. Google could, for example, spin up a consulting arm and (1) Get dead-weight people out of core operations (2) Likely, make a mint.

klodolph 4y ago

The way it was worded—it sounds like a failure to predict how many roles they wanted to eliminate. I’m sure they also wanted to hedge—wait things out and see if conditions changed.

shmatt 4y ago

They're only now (when this was decided, maybe a month or 2 ago) figuring out the natural attrition in the next couple of years will be extremely close to 0%, down from 15% or even higher

TylerE 4y ago

A cynical person might suggest that the 1st round was intended to tank morale and trigger mass resignations.

ovis 4y ago

At least according to Amazon, "Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago. The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible." (From the announcement.)

marcosdumay 4y ago
Everything on any such announcement is a lie.
- TheSoftwareGuy 4y ago
  This seems overly cynical. It makes a lot of sense to wait until teams have completed their planning. It allows the executives to sift through the proposed projects and decide specifically which ones to cut. Also, it is pretty easy to confirm with anybody who works at AWS that OP2 planning process did in fact complete recently

newaccount2023 4y ago

HN seems to have this idea that layoffs are one and done who is to say the reason why? maybe Andy Jassey just went for a long walk and came back and decided 9k more were out the door for all you know he may want 25k more gone and is just figuring out the how/when

blagie 4y ago

My philosophy on multiple rounds (which I'm not attributing to big techs): 1) Any business can tolerate a 5-20% layoff without loss to business continuity. 2) A 50% layoff results in losing critical knowledge about how to keep the business working. 3) Therefore, if you want to lose 50% of your employees, it makes sense to do it in rounds. I can give similar logic for larger layoffs too, mostly having to do with impact on employee perception. If I'm in a business who has layoffs every 3 months, I will be sending out resumes to more stable places, to the extent they exist.

marcosdumay 4y ago
> Any business can tolerate a 5-20% layoff without loss to business continuity. Does adding 2 months between your 5-20% rounds recover that continuity? I can't make my mind. It still looks like an incredibly stupid thing to do, but it will spread enough knowledge to keep your lights on. The problem is that "keep your lights on" is the only thing people will care about while overworked looking for another job.
- blagie 4y ago
  > Does adding 2 months between your 5-20% rounds recover that continuity? Yes. The knowledge is consolidated in fewer people that way. > It still looks like an incredibly stupid thing to do, but it will spread enough knowledge to keep your lights on. The problem is that "keep your lights on" is the only thing people will care about while overworked looking for another job Agreed. However, if a business is bleeding $1M per month and has $10M in savings, "keeping the lights on" for a while is considered success. I will mention: I'm not advocating for a specific course of action. I'm merely trying to explain one way of reasoning. Personally, I think there are usually out-of-the-box solutions which avoid layoffs, especially in situations similar to big tech. Google could, for example, spin up a consulting arm and (1) Get dead-weight people out of core operations (2) Likely, make a mint.