7 ms·
Layoff season is becoming an annual thing in tech, isn't it?
by paxys 3y ago
Layoff season is becoming an annual thing in tech, isn't it?
- saos 3y agoThere’s always an annual layoff. Media just perpetuating it…
- dragontamer 3y ago30%+ at Twitch, 17% at Discord, huge numbers at Google (anyone have a % from Google yet?) There's definitely more layoffs this year than usual. There's always layoffs, but the size / scope of them are not traditionally this big.
- xen0 3y agoGoogle are being shy with the numbers. Confirmed 'hundreds'; probably very low thousands? Maybe 1%?
- slekker 3y agolayoffs.fyi says 1000
- tunesmith 3y agoI get a "ripping the bandaid off" sense of it. Like for a lot of them the assumption is "okay, this is the rest of it, and then we are reset to the new normal". No idea whether that assumption is correct, but it seems the mentality is more that than "oh crap, batten down the hatches, another storm is coming".
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- squigz 3y ago> Like for a lot of them the assumption is "okay, this is the rest of it, and then we are reset to the new normal". Not to say this is universal, but I read a comment here on HN just earlier that said their company said this last year... then did the exact same thing this year.
- Groxx 3y agoLots of social and casual-entertainment companies hired a ton for the pandemic "nobody goes outside" surge too. Some of this (and the last year or two) is simply shedding unsustainable increases as everyone gets a better idea of what changes have actually occurred and will stick around. Whether that's a 5% increase or a 500% increase in amount-laid-off though, no idea. And I do worry that the increased media attention will simply make these easier to pull off unjustly, as people get more and more used to seeing it happen.
- tsunamifury 3y agoThe google layoff was in the Hundreds... i.e. what they do normally every year anyway silently. It's just being played up for investors.
- saos 3y agoAren’t these companies who historically try and avoid layoffs? To me is them changing their stance.
- aaomidi 3y agoGoogle did not do layoffs like the one last year really ever before last year.
- paxys 3y agoHow many people did Google lay off annually in January before 2023?
- swingingFlyFish 3y agoNo these sets off layoffs are way different than before.
- jimbob45 3y agoReally need the government to start heavily penalizing companies who lay people off. Layoffs can't be a tool for a company to get ahead financially. We're ruining lives and triggering suicides with these layoffs.
- peter_l_downs 3y agoHow would this work? Would companies be unable to fire people except for rule violations?
- anotherhue 3y agoNo fault layoff == 50% salary severance would help align incentives.
- yladiz 3y agoIt’s not exactly related to the parent, but in many parts of Europe, yeah, you can’t just fire someone after the probation period, and the firing needs to be for cause (which is genuinely a high bar to cross). To the point of the parent, in a lot of Europe it’s not so simple to just lay off some small portion of the company. It needs to be justified and a decent percentage, and employees are often entitled to some compensation (some severance) to offset the layoff.
- yreg 3y agoYeah, obviously depends from country to country, but for a layoff the company often has to be in some problems. It's difficult to do a layoff when you have record profits. Of course there are other ways to fire employees but those have their own rules.
- yladiz 3y agoRight. My point is that the company can’t just say “we’re not doing well, we need to get rid of a few people” and do a layoff with impunity. They have to lay off a pretty decent amount of people (in some cases like 30%) and they need to pay severance to the laid off employees. In most of Europe it’s basically a tool of last resort besides going bankrupt, unlike in the states where it’s easier and done somewhat regularly.
- 29athrowaway 3y agoRank and yank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve 1. Rank everyone 2. Layoff bottom 10% or so 3. Reward the top 4. Keep it secret or the workforce will adapt by hiring bad people and sabotaging good people Used at most companies with performance evaluations. Taught at MBA schools. Trivia: MBAs have accomplished nothing throughout human history. Only creating overpaid executives that avoid taxes, corrupt the government, ruin the environment, make people poor, sick and make other countries richer. If all MBAs retired tomorrow 90% of obesity, pollution and corruption would stop.
- eli 3y agoJust about all companies have performance evaluations. This is not an explicit tactic in most companies.
- 29athrowaway 3y agoIt is. Because of bad math and pseudoscience.
- dartos 3y agoIf it’s a tactic in a company, at some level it is explicit. Someone makes the choice.
- ok_dad 3y agoPerformance evaluations are not evaluating your performance, the evaluations are the performance. “Performance” evaluations. They’re intended to be a method to easily fire people in a litigious world.
- Scoundreller 3y agoYeah, manager’s duty is to always find something that could be improved. Same with interviews: gotta keep things qualitative lest someone sues you for not being the successful candidate.
- candiddevmike 3y ago