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Steelman: the irresponsible hiring sprees that many companies went on could be considered rather unethical considering all of them have the foreknowledge that t

Steelman: the irresponsible hiring sprees that many companies went on could be considered rather unethical considering all of them have the foreknowledge that the corona-era growth was temporary. Layoffs do cause damage to people's lives.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Steelman of the other side: Not producing the laptops that children needed to school from home during Covid would have been damaging, too. Not producing exercise equipment for people stuck at home would have been damaging, too. And so on.
- Karunamon 3y ago
  Absolutely nothing stopped them from advertising those positions as temporary. I would be willing to bet most job offers seen by normal people said nothing about urgency, they were likely sold as permanent positions. And no, I do not think it should be up to the job seeker to understand larger industry trends before signing on.
  - MattPalmer1086 3y ago
    Which positions should be temporary? Only new hires? A company sees demand and hires people. If demand falls, some people will be let go, but not necessarily the ones who just joined. All jobs are temporary, there has been no such thing as jobs for life in my entire lifetime.
    - Karunamon 3y ago
      Nobody said anything about jobs for life. When you are in a position where you know that certain events are pulling unprecedented demand forward, you know those certain events have an expiration date. I don't think honesty in job listings is beyond the pale to ask of huge corporations. If you need temps due to sudden demand, hire temps.
surgical_fire 3y ago
However, the hiring spree did increase salaries significantly. I'm fine with both.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Layoffs do cause damage to people's lives, but so does not having a job in the first place. The question is whether it would have been better to never have had these additional pandemic jobs at all. To be clear, I'm not saying there is a single correct answer. Layoffs really do cause damage, and in many cases people left more stable jobs. Still, though, so often I see on HN and elsewhere that layoffs are just the worst thing imaginable and an indication that "management has failed", and I don't agree with that at all. If people are treated with respect (and I'm not really talking about any messaging, I'm talking about if they receive a decent severance), I don't really see a problem. E.g. if someone is hired, say works for a solid 2 years, but then is laid off with say 6 months of severance, I think that person was treated fairly. But I'd probably have a very different answer if someone was hired on for 3 months, made significant changes in their family situation to accommodate that job, and then the company realized they f'd up and panicked, and that person was laid off with 2 weeks severance.
- JamesBarney 3y ago
  I agree with you, but is anyone getting 6 months severance from 2 years of work?
- happymellon 3y ago
  Completely agree, wasn't it Meta that hired a guy from India, who sold everything there and moved to the US only to be laid off a couple of days before starting? Now that destroys lives and is a dick move. There is no indication that any of the people that Lenovo hired are part of the layoff. Elsewhere I read that Lenovo have been doing all of the hiring in the R&D dept which was not included in the layoffs.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

Steelman of the other side: Not producing the laptops that children needed to school from home during Covid would have been damaging, too. Not producing exercise equipment for people stuck at home would have been damaging, too. And so on.

Karunamon 3y ago
Absolutely nothing stopped them from advertising those positions as temporary. I would be willing to bet most job offers seen by normal people said nothing about urgency, they were likely sold as permanent positions. And no, I do not think it should be up to the job seeker to understand larger industry trends before signing on.
- MattPalmer1086 3y ago
  Which positions should be temporary? Only new hires? A company sees demand and hires people. If demand falls, some people will be let go, but not necessarily the ones who just joined. All jobs are temporary, there has been no such thing as jobs for life in my entire lifetime.
  - Karunamon 3y ago
    Nobody said anything about jobs for life. When you are in a position where you know that certain events are pulling unprecedented demand forward, you know those certain events have an expiration date. I don't think honesty in job listings is beyond the pale to ask of huge corporations. If you need temps due to sudden demand, hire temps.

surgical_fire 3y ago

However, the hiring spree did increase salaries significantly. I'm fine with both.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

Layoffs do cause damage to people's lives, but so does not having a job in the first place. The question is whether it would have been better to never have had these additional pandemic jobs at all. To be clear, I'm not saying there is a single correct answer. Layoffs really do cause damage, and in many cases people left more stable jobs. Still, though, so often I see on HN and elsewhere that layoffs are just the worst thing imaginable and an indication that "management has failed", and I don't agree with that at all. If people are treated with respect (and I'm not really talking about any messaging, I'm talking about if they receive a decent severance), I don't really see a problem. E.g. if someone is hired, say works for a solid 2 years, but then is laid off with say 6 months of severance, I think that person was treated fairly. But I'd probably have a very different answer if someone was hired on for 3 months, made significant changes in their family situation to accommodate that job, and then the company realized they f'd up and panicked, and that person was laid off with 2 weeks severance.

JamesBarney 3y ago
I agree with you, but is anyone getting 6 months severance from 2 years of work?
happymellon 3y ago
Completely agree, wasn't it Meta that hired a guy from India, who sold everything there and moved to the US only to be laid off a couple of days before starting? Now that destroys lives and is a dick move. There is no indication that any of the people that Lenovo hired are part of the layoff. Elsewhere I read that Lenovo have been doing all of the hiring in the R&D dept which was not included in the layoffs.