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Why is everyone doing layoffs at once? Is it just in the news now or are they taking advantage of everyone else doing it?

0xjmp 3y ago
I think Sundar Pichai put it succinctly: “durable cost savings”
rishav_sharan 3y ago
December marks the end of the fiscal year for many companies, making January an ideal month for "organisational realignment and adjustment".
OnionBlender 3y ago
Probably don't want the bad PR from doing layoffs before Christmas.
- qqqwerty 3y ago
  FWIW, severance is usually a lump sum, so it absolutely benefits the employees to wait until the new year because the severance will likely get taxed at a lower tax bracket.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    Doesn't tax year run April to April where you live? That's the case in the UK, so it would have made absolutely no difference to how it's taxed.
    - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
      That's just a weird UK thing I think.
devjab 3y ago
The economy isn’t doing so well and it’s not going to correct itself any time soon. It’s not really that noticeable on the larger scale but any company that produces anything non-digital is still having supply line issues. Not as bad as a few years ago, but still bad enough to cost the global economy a lot of potential growth. Then there is the higher interest rates, which in themselves are an issue for the economy. Not so much because companies “need” to borrow money as such, but because the ridiculously low interest rates made it easier to make more money since you could fund things with money you didn’t have, since it was basically free to do so. A lot of places even sort of dropped the ball on this, not locking in the rates on their loans because, well, because we’re collectively rather stupid, so many organisations are looking at making deals with banks to find some reasonable place to land these loans in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone too bad. There is more to it than that, but the over all result is that a long with the inflation (which may have stopped but it’s not like prices are dropping just because they paused increasing) wage stagnation and so on, is that there is a lot less purchasing power and willingness both in the investment and in the consumer markets. You can say that companies over hires during the COVID lock downs, which isn’t really wrong, but we’re also sort of in a recession that we have collective agree not to talk about. Partly because it’s a weird recession considering the job market is hot.
- asylteltine 3y ago
  Is the economy bad? Seems fine to me. In general a “bad economy” seems entirely made up. It’s not like the money just disappears. I think it’s a concept invented to facilitate wealth transfers.
  - akira2501 3y ago
    > It’s not like the money just disappears. Tencent has lost a lot of value in the past few months and has had a terrible year overall. The value has disappeared. > I think it’s a concept invented to facilitate wealth transfers. Well, if you transfer a bunch of wealth upwards, it's going to have negative consequences that travel downwards. Those who receive them may describe the economy as "bad." Which not only describes a current state, but probably mostly encodes their lack of hope for any type of future mobility that may change their circumstances.

0xjmp 3y ago

I think Sundar Pichai put it succinctly: “durable cost savings”

rishav_sharan 3y ago

December marks the end of the fiscal year for many companies, making January an ideal month for "organisational realignment and adjustment".

OnionBlender 3y ago

Probably don't want the bad PR from doing layoffs before Christmas.

qqqwerty 3y ago
FWIW, severance is usually a lump sum, so it absolutely benefits the employees to wait until the new year because the severance will likely get taxed at a lower tax bracket.
- gambiting 3y ago
  Doesn't tax year run April to April where you live? That's the case in the UK, so it would have made absolutely no difference to how it's taxed.
  - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
    That's just a weird UK thing I think.

devjab 3y ago

The economy isn’t doing so well and it’s not going to correct itself any time soon. It’s not really that noticeable on the larger scale but any company that produces anything non-digital is still having supply line issues. Not as bad as a few years ago, but still bad enough to cost the global economy a lot of potential growth. Then there is the higher interest rates, which in themselves are an issue for the economy. Not so much because companies “need” to borrow money as such, but because the ridiculously low interest rates made it easier to make more money since you could fund things with money you didn’t have, since it was basically free to do so. A lot of places even sort of dropped the ball on this, not locking in the rates on their loans because, well, because we’re collectively rather stupid, so many organisations are looking at making deals with banks to find some reasonable place to land these loans in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone too bad. There is more to it than that, but the over all result is that a long with the inflation (which may have stopped but it’s not like prices are dropping just because they paused increasing) wage stagnation and so on, is that there is a lot less purchasing power and willingness both in the investment and in the consumer markets. You can say that companies over hires during the COVID lock downs, which isn’t really wrong, but we’re also sort of in a recession that we have collective agree not to talk about. Partly because it’s a weird recession considering the job market is hot.

asylteltine 3y ago
Is the economy bad? Seems fine to me. In general a “bad economy” seems entirely made up. It’s not like the money just disappears. I think it’s a concept invented to facilitate wealth transfers.
- akira2501 3y ago
  > It’s not like the money just disappears. Tencent has lost a lot of value in the past few months and has had a terrible year overall. The value has disappeared. > I think it’s a concept invented to facilitate wealth transfers. Well, if you transfer a bunch of wealth upwards, it's going to have negative consequences that travel downwards. Those who receive them may describe the economy as "bad." Which not only describes a current state, but probably mostly encodes their lack of hope for any type of future mobility that may change their circumstances.