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This seems like an overly simplistic "capital owners greedy/labor-good-capital-bad" kind of take. I don't know if you've applied for any tech jobs recently but

by pc86 3y ago

This seems like an overly simplistic "capital owners greedy/labor-good-capital-bad" kind of take. I don't know if you've applied for any tech jobs recently but at least outside of super-senior and FAANG positions that I'm familiar with, it's pretty brutal. When I applied for my current role I was basically going against 3-4 other people and we all matched about 80% of the qualifications for the role. My boss is hiring right now and within a day received over 100 applications, and as of last week he has at least dozen who fit 100% of the qualifications for a comparable role to mine.

bugglebeetle 3y ago
That’s not really in conflict with anything I wrote? Firms are colluding on layoffs to force these kinds of conditions and drive down wages.
- Plasmoid 3y ago
  What do you mean by collusion? Do you mean an explicit agreement like the old FAANG no poaching agreement? Or something more subtle?
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    Return to office is largely layoffs in disguise, all of FAANG is doing it, and have more or less explicitly stated that they have no rationale beyond “we can make you do this, so we are.” As you pointed out, they already conspired in the past with their no poaching agreements, so draw your own conclusions.
    - IX-103 3y ago
      Yep. Not too mention the actual layoffs that are going on. If you actually look at the hiring for the companies with these layoffs then you find that they are actually growing their workforce while still announcing layoffs. That seems almost designed to depress wages...
      - pc86 3y ago
        In every case I've seen layoffs-but-expanding-hiring it's always been completely separate teams, maybe even completely different business units - which in a sufficiently large company might as well be different companies. Have you seen any occurrences of, e.g. layoffs in a team of web developers while simultaneously still hiring web developers?

by pc86 3y ago

bugglebeetle 3y ago

That’s not really in conflict with anything I wrote? Firms are colluding on layoffs to force these kinds of conditions and drive down wages.

Plasmoid 3y ago
What do you mean by collusion? Do you mean an explicit agreement like the old FAANG no poaching agreement? Or something more subtle?
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  Return to office is largely layoffs in disguise, all of FAANG is doing it, and have more or less explicitly stated that they have no rationale beyond “we can make you do this, so we are.” As you pointed out, they already conspired in the past with their no poaching agreements, so draw your own conclusions.
  - IX-103 3y ago
    Yep. Not too mention the actual layoffs that are going on. If you actually look at the hiring for the companies with these layoffs then you find that they are actually growing their workforce while still announcing layoffs. That seems almost designed to depress wages...
    - pc86 3y ago
      In every case I've seen layoffs-but-expanding-hiring it's always been completely separate teams, maybe even completely different business units - which in a sufficiently large company might as well be different companies. Have you seen any occurrences of, e.g. layoffs in a team of web developers while simultaneously still hiring web developers?