6 ms·

Balancing the books (books which are, mind you, awash in black ink) using people's livelihoods. How very dystopian. Normal attrition rates, which are about 3%

Balancing the books (books which are, mind you, awash in black ink) using people's livelihoods. How very dystopian. Normal attrition rates, which are about 3% per month† for our industry, should be enough to manage even the worst hiring imbalances in a matter of months. Perfectly reasonable for a healthy and growing company like Facebook. Specifically, a 3% monthly attrition rate would take Facebook from ~85k to ~60k in under a year. Maybe a bit longer to replace positions which they couldn't afford to downsize. Voluntary layoffs would help speed that up if necessary. There's little reason for a healthy company to do layoffs unless their goal is sudden spikes in stock prices. † https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t11.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t11.htm

wpietri 4y ago
And let's not forget social contagion: https://www.businessinsider.com/stanford-professor-mass-layoffs-caused-by-social-contagion-companies-imitating-2023-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/stanford-professor-mass-layo...
- falcolas 4y ago
  And shareholder pressure. But as far as I have seen, it's been meaningless pressure, since the shareholders did nothing to companies who did not do mass layoffs at their behest.
CamelCaseName 4y ago
In a downturn your natural attrition rate falls very quickly. Data: https://i.imgur.com/SwqhZX0.png https://i.imgur.com/SwqhZX0.png
- loeg 4y ago
  Falls very quickly to levels higher than any period 2000-2021?
- falcolas 4y ago
  The data in my link is from Feb '23. Pretty recent - and relevant since we are in a downturn - values.
foota 4y ago
Fwiw I think you're less likely to see that rate of attrition when everyone's doing layoffs.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Check the link - it's up to Feb '23, well within our mass tech layoff window.
CaveTech 4y ago
Probably also a bit dystopian to assume that normal attrition happens in a way that's favourable to business operations. You are defending personal attachments of individuals (livelihoods), while simultaneously referring to them as commodities (bodies in seats). It's not an enviable position to be in, but it's naive to believe you can build a functional organization around natural turnover. If you were told you had to lose 36% of your body mass in a year I bet you'd want to pick where it came from over a random 3% per month extraction.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > You are defending personal attachments of individuals (livelihoods), while simultaneously referring to them as commodities (bodies in seats). Not at all. Voluntary quitting on your own terms is very different from involuntary firing. And it's a fact that people quit a company regularly. There are ebbs and flows, but using natural attrition to your advantage as a company is a lot more humane an action than axing people in waves of layoffs to the same effect. > If you were told you had to lose 36% of your body mass in a year I bet you'd want to pick where it came from over a random 3% per month extraction. This assumes they are making highly considered choices for what talent they let go. Everything points to "they're not". Regardless, we're talking about a healthy, growing company with a good profit margin and outlook. There's likely no need to set such explicit numbers or timeframes unless you're looking to manipulate your market value.
- selcuka 4y ago
  > If you were told you had to lose 36% of your body mass in a year I bet you'd want to pick where it came from over a random 3% per month extraction. Anecdotal story, but the CEO of a company I worked for in the past told department managers to fire one person (exactly one, from each department) because they needed to reduce head count. That strategy sounds pretty random to me.
  - CaveTech 4y ago
    Arbitrary, yes, but almost the exact opposite of random.
hankchinaski 4y ago
The company is run for and by shareholders, it’s not a charity so all of this is pretty understandable
- falcolas 4y ago
  Not all public companies who were prompted by shareholders to lay off employees did so. And do you know what the shareholders did? Nothing.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    Can you give a good example that illustrates your point?
geodel 4y ago
Well, it is always 2-way street. Employees can leave employers and Employers can ask employees to leave. Not sure, how only one party has ethical obligations.
- falcolas 4y ago
  The power imbalance between an employee and an employer means that no, it's absolutely not a 2-way street. An employee (especially in the US) depends upon the employer for the money required for food, shelter, transportation, entertainment, etc. The employee depends on the employer to get health care. An average employee is 3-6 months of unemployment away from being homeless. An employer does not, with very few exceptions, give a single fuck about any individual employee. They view those employees as expenses grudgingly accepted as necessary at the best of times, and expenses to be eliminated at the worst. They are not equals. Contracts between them were not made with the consideration of equal parties.
  - bko 4y ago
    I disagree. I have a lot of options as an employee, as do most people. Health care is tough but cobra is helpful and ideally you'd find another job before you give notice. Even lengthy interview processes are relatively cheap for me. Many companies have to pay recruiters 5 figure amounts to get someone. I can just reply to the dozen recruiters that hit me up on LinkedIn every month. People have options. Even low wage employees. The people in these jobs jump around a lot and are notoriously unreliable or likely to not give notice when they leave. That's why you see the manager behind the counter so often. If you don't believe me ask anyone working a service job how long they've been there and how many jobs they've had over the last 5 years. People jump around a lot. And training is a huge cost. Most employees aren't productive immediately, meaning that the company spends a lot of time and money training them with the expectation that they'll get some of that money invested back and you won't jump ship for a better job once you've been trained. Finally most firms (esp Meta) give generous severance. Imagine you'd have to work for free for 3 months if you wanted to do something else.
    - 4y ago
plantwallshoe 4y ago
Attrition for a company that pays in the 95% percentile is going to be much lower than the industry average, especially when most of the other companies in that pay tier have also stopped hiring.
- dx034 4y ago
  And attrition reduces the number of underpaid people, while you'd want to reduce the number of overpaid people.
- falcolas 4y ago
  That's OK, they have time. Excellent revenue, billions of dollars of pure profit post-tax... Yeah, their growth in 2022 left much to be desired, but every year prior was pretty much exponential - the trend is still positive. They can clearly afford to take the time to downsize naturally.
corbulo 4y ago
Not every industry can be as utopic as UAW jobs.
badpun 4y ago
> Normal attrition rates, which are about 3% per month† for our industry How did you get the 3% from that link? If software falls under "information", then the the attrition rate indicated in the link is about 1.3%.
zeroonetwothree 4y ago
Attrition at Meta is currently far below those rates.

wpietri 4y ago

And let's not forget social contagion: https://www.businessinsider.com/stanford-professor-mass-layoffs-caused-by-social-contagion-companies-imitating-2023-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/stanford-professor-mass-layo...

falcolas 4y ago
And shareholder pressure. But as far as I have seen, it's been meaningless pressure, since the shareholders did nothing to companies who did not do mass layoffs at their behest.

CamelCaseName 4y ago

In a downturn your natural attrition rate falls very quickly. Data: https://i.imgur.com/SwqhZX0.png https://i.imgur.com/SwqhZX0.png

loeg 4y ago
Falls very quickly to levels higher than any period 2000-2021?
falcolas 4y ago
The data in my link is from Feb '23. Pretty recent - and relevant since we are in a downturn - values.

foota 4y ago

Fwiw I think you're less likely to see that rate of attrition when everyone's doing layoffs.

falcolas 4y ago
Check the link - it's up to Feb '23, well within our mass tech layoff window.

CaveTech 4y ago

Probably also a bit dystopian to assume that normal attrition happens in a way that's favourable to business operations. You are defending personal attachments of individuals (livelihoods), while simultaneously referring to them as commodities (bodies in seats). It's not an enviable position to be in, but it's naive to believe you can build a functional organization around natural turnover. If you were told you had to lose 36% of your body mass in a year I bet you'd want to pick where it came from over a random 3% per month extraction.

falcolas 4y ago
> You are defending personal attachments of individuals (livelihoods), while simultaneously referring to them as commodities (bodies in seats). Not at all. Voluntary quitting on your own terms is very different from involuntary firing. And it's a fact that people quit a company regularly. There are ebbs and flows, but using natural attrition to your advantage as a company is a lot more humane an action than axing people in waves of layoffs to the same effect. > If you were told you had to lose 36% of your body mass in a year I bet you'd want to pick where it came from over a random 3% per month extraction. This assumes they are making highly considered choices for what talent they let go. Everything points to "they're not". Regardless, we're talking about a healthy, growing company with a good profit margin and outlook. There's likely no need to set such explicit numbers or timeframes unless you're looking to manipulate your market value.
selcuka 4y ago
> If you were told you had to lose 36% of your body mass in a year I bet you'd want to pick where it came from over a random 3% per month extraction. Anecdotal story, but the CEO of a company I worked for in the past told department managers to fire one person (exactly one, from each department) because they needed to reduce head count. That strategy sounds pretty random to me.
- CaveTech 4y ago
  Arbitrary, yes, but almost the exact opposite of random.

hankchinaski 4y ago

The company is run for and by shareholders, it’s not a charity so all of this is pretty understandable

falcolas 4y ago
Not all public companies who were prompted by shareholders to lay off employees did so. And do you know what the shareholders did? Nothing.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  Can you give a good example that illustrates your point?

geodel 4y ago

Well, it is always 2-way street. Employees can leave employers and Employers can ask employees to leave. Not sure, how only one party has ethical obligations.

falcolas 4y ago
The power imbalance between an employee and an employer means that no, it's absolutely not a 2-way street. An employee (especially in the US) depends upon the employer for the money required for food, shelter, transportation, entertainment, etc. The employee depends on the employer to get health care. An average employee is 3-6 months of unemployment away from being homeless. An employer does not, with very few exceptions, give a single fuck about any individual employee. They view those employees as expenses grudgingly accepted as necessary at the best of times, and expenses to be eliminated at the worst. They are not equals. Contracts between them were not made with the consideration of equal parties.
- bko 4y ago
  I disagree. I have a lot of options as an employee, as do most people. Health care is tough but cobra is helpful and ideally you'd find another job before you give notice. Even lengthy interview processes are relatively cheap for me. Many companies have to pay recruiters 5 figure amounts to get someone. I can just reply to the dozen recruiters that hit me up on LinkedIn every month. People have options. Even low wage employees. The people in these jobs jump around a lot and are notoriously unreliable or likely to not give notice when they leave. That's why you see the manager behind the counter so often. If you don't believe me ask anyone working a service job how long they've been there and how many jobs they've had over the last 5 years. People jump around a lot. And training is a huge cost. Most employees aren't productive immediately, meaning that the company spends a lot of time and money training them with the expectation that they'll get some of that money invested back and you won't jump ship for a better job once you've been trained. Finally most firms (esp Meta) give generous severance. Imagine you'd have to work for free for 3 months if you wanted to do something else.
  - 4y ago

plantwallshoe 4y ago

Attrition for a company that pays in the 95% percentile is going to be much lower than the industry average, especially when most of the other companies in that pay tier have also stopped hiring.

dx034 4y ago
And attrition reduces the number of underpaid people, while you'd want to reduce the number of overpaid people.
falcolas 4y ago
That's OK, they have time. Excellent revenue, billions of dollars of pure profit post-tax... Yeah, their growth in 2022 left much to be desired, but every year prior was pretty much exponential - the trend is still positive. They can clearly afford to take the time to downsize naturally.

corbulo 4y ago

Not every industry can be as utopic as UAW jobs.

badpun 4y ago

> Normal attrition rates, which are about 3% per month† for our industry How did you get the 3% from that link? If software falls under "information", then the the attrition rate indicated in the link is about 1.3%.

zeroonetwothree 4y ago

Attrition at Meta is currently far below those rates.