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Even if they are entirely employee owned, having thousands of staff working towards goals that you're no longer trying to meet or are unproductive is a bad idea

Even if they are entirely employee owned, having thousands of staff working towards goals that you're no longer trying to meet or are unproductive is a bad idea. You need to employ & deploy your people in a productive capacity (however that is defined, it could be pure research, not profit motivated). Big tech expanded a LOT during the pandemic. Too much. Google hired 30,300 people in 2022! (and 21k in 2021) While layoffs are tough for everyone (especially those losing the job), if you expanded too fast, I think that an early reset is probably better than burning through more cash to deal with a bigger problem later, when you then might have to make deeper employee cuts than if you'd acted sooner. After these layoffs Google will still be a LOT bigger than it was a year ago.

newswasboring 4y ago
> While layoffs are tough for everyone That's the thing though, its not tough for everyone. Its only tough for the employee, the employer gets more money. Its not tough for them at all.
- Quarrel 4y ago
  Having had to sack 90% of staff that worked for me at one point, I'd disagree and say that it is pretty tough on both sides. That said, I meant it was tough on all employees, not just those fired, to be going through layoffs.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    Paying people to work on stuff that doesn’t doesn’t generate value is also tough on the employer.
sobrenien 4y ago
Even if layoffs are the correct decision now, the company playing fast and loose with over expansion and thus their employees is absolutely worth criticizing and protesting over. The company with billions of dollars in the bank will have teams of people assessing risk management. But apparently those assessments didn’t address the human risk of over hiring tens of thousands of people to such a degree that they ‘need’ to dispose of them at the first sign of trouble. Other sectors of the economy didn’t see such drastic layoffs so they can’t claim it’s a widespread and unforeseeable problem. They made a risky bet that had a real human cost, and people are right to wonder what’s the point of mega corps if they’re not any better at this than a small or medium business.

newswasboring 4y ago

> While layoffs are tough for everyone That's the thing though, its not tough for everyone. Its only tough for the employee, the employer gets more money. Its not tough for them at all.

Quarrel 4y ago
Having had to sack 90% of staff that worked for me at one point, I'd disagree and say that it is pretty tough on both sides. That said, I meant it was tough on all employees, not just those fired, to be going through layoffs.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  Paying people to work on stuff that doesn’t doesn’t generate value is also tough on the employer.

sobrenien 4y ago

Even if layoffs are the correct decision now, the company playing fast and loose with over expansion and thus their employees is absolutely worth criticizing and protesting over. The company with billions of dollars in the bank will have teams of people assessing risk management. But apparently those assessments didn’t address the human risk of over hiring tens of thousands of people to such a degree that they ‘need’ to dispose of them at the first sign of trouble. Other sectors of the economy didn’t see such drastic layoffs so they can’t claim it’s a widespread and unforeseeable problem. They made a risky bet that had a real human cost, and people are right to wonder what’s the point of mega corps if they’re not any better at this than a small or medium business.