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> These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". While both terms mean someone no longer has a job, they differ in cause and implication. Firing is when empl
by andsoitis 1y ago
> These aren't "job losses", these are "firings".
While both terms mean someone no longer has a job, they differ in cause and implication.
Firing is when employer terminates someone for cause, i.e. employee did something wrong or didn't meet expectations. Job loss is a broader term, simply means the person no longer has a job, for any reason, but typically layoffs, downsizing, restructuring, plant closure, or being fired.
So I'm not really upset about saying job losses in this case rather than firing, because the employees who lost their jobs didn't do anything wrong and I think it is useful to be able to distinguish.
The phrase that DOES irk me is "let go" vs. "fire". Now that is a weasel phrasing.
- edanm 1y ago> Firing is when employer terminates someone for cause, i.e. employee did something wrong or didn't meet expectations. AFAIK you are using the term "for cause" incorrectly. Firing "for cause" is usually more serious than simply firing for poor performance or similar. It's usually for something like breach of contract, for getting in legal trouble, for theft, wilful misconduct, etc. It also usually results in losing severance, options, etc. Simple firing for poor performance is not firing "for cause".
- rco8786 1y ago"job loss" is purposefully passive to remove culpability from the entity (Amazon) that is making the active choice to terminate these people's jobs. It's the same as language like "officer involved shooting" to avoid saying "an officer shot a person" or calling a "murder" a "loss of life".
- andsoitis 1y ago> purposefully passive to remove culpability from the entity (Amazon) that is making the active choice to terminate these people's jobs. Opening line in the article: "Amazon has confirmed it plans to cut thousands of jobs, saying it needs to be "organised more leanly" to seize the opportunity provided by artificial intelligence (AI)." And the statement from Amazon uses the phrase "we are reducing..."
- rco8786 1y agoYes we’re discussing the headline
- andsoitis 1y ago> Yes we’re discussing the headline Ah I see, your beef is with the BBC, not Amazon.
- johnnyanmac 1y agoIt can be both. In this case it is. BBC for the sanewhashing of insanity, and Amazon for continuing to inflate this giant AI bubble.
- ruszki 1y agoThere is enough people who don’t read articles just headlines whose world view can be changed with this. In Hungary, where I’m originally from, one of my friends sent me an article, which was about immigration in 2015, because she thought that the local district government wanted to move “migrants” (dog whistle for non white people over there) into her district. The headline said that, the body said the exact opposite… and it worked. Also there are a ton of comments here, on Reddit, and really everywhere, that makes it quite obvious that a lot of people don’t read just headlines.
- John23832 1y agoRight and that is different that passive wording of "job loss" used above?
- bluGill 1y agoThe more important thing it does though is remove culpability from the employee who doesn't have a job anymore. That person will be looking for a job (we assume, perhaps a few will just retire or something else). The companies they apply at will want to know why they no longer work at Amazon - there is a big difference between "I was sexually harassing my coworkers" (pick a crime, sexual harassment seems to be the big one these days), and "Amazon decided they didn't need my job done any more".
- rco8786 1y agoThat's why "layoff" is the right word to use. It makes it clear that it was Amazon's decision and not through any direct fault of the employee.
- pinnochio 1y agoYes. Job loss is what the employee experiences, not the employer.
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoThe owner of the employer company just experienced a vacation in space, renting an entire European country for a wedding, etc. Some employees are going to experience losing their housing. Losing their health benefits while sick. Children will be moved from their friends/schools. Some will lose their careers as they won't find new related work quick enough and will have to take whatever they can get for their next job. While the owner vacations in space for fun.
- Jensson 1y agoThose are unrelated, the same would happen regardless if it was owned by millions via their pension plans or a few billionaires, both are equally greedy and immediately move their investments for 1% higher returns, the CEO's at these companies are servants to that inhuman level of greed that comes from dissociated masses of people being owners.
- madamelic 1y agoIt's also a total gut-punch to employees. "We had a great quarter!... not a good enough though, so GTFO" I can only imagine what this will do to morale. If even positive quarters means job cuts, why even try to have a positive quarter.
- Temporary_31337 1y agoI dunno, I got used to the weekly beatings. You could arque that if you understand what brings the most business value and deliver that repeatedly, you're pretty safe from being fired and arguably you'd know how to run your own business if needed. If someone, say did a great job of updating API documentation that can be fully automated now, that's not good enough nowadays. I realise that's not exactly fair because the capitalists / shareholders 'only' have to have to have money in order to receive compensation, and you as a labourer face increasing demands. If you don't like the balance of power you find a niche / leverage as a laborer or you switch to being a capitalist eventually.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago>You could arque that if you understand what brings the most business value and deliver that repeatedly, you're pretty safe from being fired and arguably you'd know how to run your own business if needed. It's not the 2010's anymore. You're not fired because you did a bad job or even because you weren't productive enough. You're fired in a larger cultural wave to try and remove American labor from the American economy as they push everything overseas and pretend it's about "efficiency with AI". Nothing is hiring outside of hospitality right now. >you switch to being a capitalist eventually. Hope you have generational wealth. Otherwise that "capitalist" position is you delivering doordash just to survive.
- ulfw 1y agoWhat a cute naive thinking of life. If you truly believe the best people are not layed off from corporations, you must be extremely young and just starting out. Corporations are a lot less rational than you imply
- gruez 1y ago
- SoftTalker 1y ago"culpability" is also purposefully loaded. It's not wrong for a company to decide that certain jobs are no longer needed. How they handle that could be more or less considerate of the human impact, but there's really no way to do it that won't cause some some upset to the terminated employee.
- Gud 1y agoIf a person fails to understand they are essentially working for a feudal lord when they sign up to work for Amazon, the educational system has failed. In the modern capitalist world, entire industries are shipped over seas or simply vanish. Question. Why is it the shareholders of AMZNs responsibility to keep people employed?
- dgs_sgd 1y agoWhy is downsizing and an employee’s role no longer being cost effective for the business not considered “cause” for firing?
- qsi 1y agoCause in this context specifically refers to the employee having done something wrong or illegal and means the employee is guilty of misconduct.
- rsanek 1y agoIt is very rare for someone that is fired to be "guilty of misconduct," unless you consider poor performance misconduct.
- acatnamedjoe 1y agoIn Britain we have quite strong employment laws and a bit less of a ruthless corporate culture, so in many sectors it's fairly uncommon for people to be terminated for poor performance, so I suspect "misconduct" is a higher percentage of overall firings here.
- Forgeties79 1y agoYeah for sure. Unfortunately in the US it’s not uncommon for companies to find “a pattern of behavior” or “less than stellar work” that is enough to justify not giving you your severance, but also not too severe that they can’t be blamed for never bringing it up and putting you on a PIP (performance improvement plan, not sure if that’s a term in other countries).
- lotsofpulp 1y agoIn the US, if your employment is terminated for cause, i.e. due to your underperformance at work, then you are not eligible to receive unemployment benefits from the government. There could be other conditions too depending on whatever employment agreement exists, but the point is to determine if an employee’s lack of performance caused their employment to be terminated or something external to the employee caused their employment to be terminated.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y agoWhenever there are layoffs of a major company, like half the comments here always bemoan the particular wording the article or company uses to describe the layoffs. It's a pointless exercise IMO (though I agree with you, ironically "firing" is less accurate than "let go"). Layoffs suck. Companies should be judged by their actions (e.g. severance, who is being laid off, etc.) and just ignore the words.
- johnnyanmac 1y agoWell their actions suck and their reasoning is probably a lie. So... what now? I already cancelled my Prime subscription this year.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Forgeties79 1y agoThe only phrases they should be using are “Amazon lays off 14,000…” or (in the case of with cause) “Amazon fires 14,000…” To me everything else is weasel words.
- pseudalopex 1y ago> Firing is when employer terminates someone for cause, i.e. employee did something wrong or didn't meet expectations. This meaning is present in many people's minds. It is not present in many people's minds or any dictionary I saw ever. to remove someone from their job, either because they have done something wrong or badly, or as a way of saving the cost of employing them[1] The act or an instance of dismissing someone from a job.[2] the action of forcing somebody to leave their job[3] And so on. [1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fire https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fire [2] https://www.thefreedictionary.com/firing https://www.thefreedictionary.com/firing [3] https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/firing https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis...
- gruez 1y agocounterpoint: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fire#Verb https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fire#Verb 4. (transitive, employment) To terminate the employment contract of (an employee), especially for cause (such as misconduct, incompetence, or poor performance).
- pseudalopex 1y agoOK. The meaning appeared in 1 dictionary I saw ever now. And it said firing was not termination for cause solely.
- cjbgkagh 1y agoThat’s what I was thinking but I looked it up in the dictionary and appears that firing is already pretty neutral yet picked up the negative connotation, presumably because most people consider firings to be with cause. Even ‘layoffs’ has picked up a negative connotation. I’m not sure if it’s possible for language to to continuously outrun the associations, I guess we either police the language more fervently or continue inventing new words. Part of me hates the capriciousness of randomly selected layoffs but it’s done for a few main reasons, firstly that it’s not exploitable by internal politicking (at least less explicable). Secondly, reduces exposure to lawsuits about performance. Thirdly, reduces reputational damage to those laid off. Of course there is an incredible incentive to lie about the randomness.
- FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago> Firing is when employer terminates someone for cause, People are fired for a cause, namely Amazon needs more profit for its shareholders.