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> here are 2 main drivers of these layoffs: > 1. Correcting pandemic overhiring > 2. In the ~2010-2022 timeframe, tech companies poured all this money into sp

> here are 2 main drivers of these layoffs: > 1. Correcting pandemic overhiring > 2. In the ~2010-2022 timeframe, tech companies poured all this money into speculative bets Any data/sources on which this might be based? The pandemic was 6 years ago; do these "Agile" (the tech term) companies really carry many unproductive lines-of-business for so long? > speculative bets that never went anywhere ... think Amazon's Alexa devices division, Google Stadia, and perhaps most famously the Metaverse itself Organizations make speculative bets all the time. Is there an accounting of the profitability of Alexa/Nest etc.? > end of the ZIRP era would have caused companies to kill these inherently unprofitable projects if you plug in the years 2020-2026 in the Fed Rate - Unemployment chart here at [1], it shows that from 2020 - 2022, rates were near zero while unemployment spiked during Covid and then fell. From 2022 through 2023, rates rose sharply while unemployment stayed relatively low. 2024-2025 the labor market softened. You can add the Federal Funds Effective Rate and the Unemployment Rate easily through the menu. Unemployment stayed low through the rise in rates for almost two years prior to 2024. Given that companies operate on a quarterly reporting basis and program/project decisions are at least on that cadence, I don't think that the line you're suggesting that Rates-Go-Up -> Projects-Get-Killed -> Layoffs-Increase quite lines up with the economy-wide data in this exceptional case of 2022-2023. We may have to look elsewhere for the reasons behind the current labor market weakness ... cough..*economy*..*trade walls*..cough...*structural re-alignment* [2]...cough... [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1duFv https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1duFv [2] 6% employment decline in 22-25 year old workers https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/app/uploads/2025/11/CanariesintheCoalMine_Nov25.pdf https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/app/uploads/2025/11/Cana...

trgn 6mo ago
agreed. zirp has become a meme, it does not really explain any current dynamics.
malfist 6mo ago
How many hall passes do CEOs get for pandemic over hiring? Its been four years, and four years of layoffs and hiring to go back to layoffs. Pandemic over hiring might explain the first layoff or two a year or so later, but not the tenth or so layoff nearly half a decade later.
- coredog64 6mo ago
  It's the principal/agent problem: The overhiring is incredibly difficult to unwind because it led to the creation of empires. Everyone who is not a founder has more incentive to keep the empire because it props up their comp.
  - shermantanktop 6mo ago
    I see this firsthand. Execs who are openly hostile to and distrusting of their own middle management. These were supposed to be farsighted geniuses who took credit for their stock performance. But they made the most obvious blunder: opening a Pandora’s box that they can’t close.
  - malfist 6mo ago
    How? In 2022, Meta laid off 11,000 (13%) In 2023, Meta did two layoffs, one of 10,000 (another 13.6%), one of 600 In 2024, Meta did a layoff (layoffs.fyi doesn't list the number) In 2025, Meta did three layoffs, one of 3,600 (5%), 100 and 600 people In 2026, Meta has done two layoffs, one of 200, and one of 8,000 (10%). If you can't correct overhiring in 4 years as a CEO, you've failed. If you repeatedly have to do >10% layoffs every year for 4 years you've failed (if it's to correct for a one time hiring spree). Meta's employment didn't skyrocket during the pandemic making this argument even more bullshit. Between 2012 and 2018 Meta averaged an employee count growth of 40% YoY. In 2020, they grew by 31%, 2021 22% and 20% in 2022. Meta slowed their growth during the pandemic. This "pandemic overhiring" is bullshit.
    - burningChrome 6mo ago
      Just to play devils advocate here - but from 2022-2026 did they ever have any large hiring cycles that would replace some or most of these layoffs? Or should I believe none of the layoffs in the last four years have been replaced at all? I do agree with your point about overhiring, its been way to long and this continues to be an excuse without any real evidence to back it up.
    - nradov 6mo ago
hdndjsbbs 6mo ago
> Any data/sources on which this might be based? The pandemic was 6 years ago; do these "Agile" (the tech term) companies really carry many unproductive lines-of-business for so long? Do big tech companies like FB and Google even pretend to be "agile" anymore? I think they mostly sell themselves on institutional stability and monopolist market positions rather than speed of execution
- TeMPOraL 6mo ago
  Did they ever pretend, and anyone ever believed that? "Agile" organization is even more of a bullshit concept than "Agile" in the team. Excepting for trivial-size, freshly formed startups, companies cannot be "Agile", because finance and legal and HR and even marketing have constrains setting the tempo - you cannot just drive them with a sprint as if it was a clock signal.
  - ninjagoo 6mo ago
    > "Agile" organization is even more of a bullshit concept than "Agile" in the team. > Excepting for trivial-size, freshly formed startups, companies cannot be "Agile", because finance and legal and HR and even marketing have constrains setting the tempo - you cannot just drive them with a sprint as if it was a clock signal. Implementations of Agile at different companies can be an issue, yes. But that is to be expected in any large organization, simply because of scale. It doesn't change the fact that the on-the-ground teams at agile orgs work to a different cadence and approach than historically traditionally structured companies. There are a few different ways to manage interfacing with parts of the org that need to march to a different beat. That always creates friction, and has to be managed properly. Any large org can suffer from hubris, middling management skills and capacity, wasted effort. Problems of scale, I guess.
    - nradov 6mo ago
      Enterprise methodologies like Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) are explicitly designed around managing that friction. Developers may complain about the additional toil and process overhead it imposes on them, but for the organization as a whole this is sometimes the least bad option.

trgn 6mo ago

agreed. zirp has become a meme, it does not really explain any current dynamics.

malfist 6mo ago

How many hall passes do CEOs get for pandemic over hiring? Its been four years, and four years of layoffs and hiring to go back to layoffs. Pandemic over hiring might explain the first layoff or two a year or so later, but not the tenth or so layoff nearly half a decade later.

coredog64 6mo ago
It's the principal/agent problem: The overhiring is incredibly difficult to unwind because it led to the creation of empires. Everyone who is not a founder has more incentive to keep the empire because it props up their comp.
- shermantanktop 6mo ago
  I see this firsthand. Execs who are openly hostile to and distrusting of their own middle management. These were supposed to be farsighted geniuses who took credit for their stock performance. But they made the most obvious blunder: opening a Pandora’s box that they can’t close.
- malfist 6mo ago
  How? In 2022, Meta laid off 11,000 (13%) In 2023, Meta did two layoffs, one of 10,000 (another 13.6%), one of 600 In 2024, Meta did a layoff (layoffs.fyi doesn't list the number) In 2025, Meta did three layoffs, one of 3,600 (5%), 100 and 600 people In 2026, Meta has done two layoffs, one of 200, and one of 8,000 (10%). If you can't correct overhiring in 4 years as a CEO, you've failed. If you repeatedly have to do >10% layoffs every year for 4 years you've failed (if it's to correct for a one time hiring spree). Meta's employment didn't skyrocket during the pandemic making this argument even more bullshit. Between 2012 and 2018 Meta averaged an employee count growth of 40% YoY. In 2020, they grew by 31%, 2021 22% and 20% in 2022. Meta slowed their growth during the pandemic. This "pandemic overhiring" is bullshit.
  - burningChrome 6mo ago
    Just to play devils advocate here - but from 2022-2026 did they ever have any large hiring cycles that would replace some or most of these layoffs? Or should I believe none of the layoffs in the last four years have been replaced at all? I do agree with your point about overhiring, its been way to long and this continues to be an excuse without any real evidence to back it up.
  - nradov 6mo ago

hdndjsbbs 6mo ago

> Any data/sources on which this might be based? The pandemic was 6 years ago; do these "Agile" (the tech term) companies really carry many unproductive lines-of-business for so long? Do big tech companies like FB and Google even pretend to be "agile" anymore? I think they mostly sell themselves on institutional stability and monopolist market positions rather than speed of execution

TeMPOraL 6mo ago
Did they ever pretend, and anyone ever believed that? "Agile" organization is even more of a bullshit concept than "Agile" in the team. Excepting for trivial-size, freshly formed startups, companies cannot be "Agile", because finance and legal and HR and even marketing have constrains setting the tempo - you cannot just drive them with a sprint as if it was a clock signal.
- ninjagoo 6mo ago
  > "Agile" organization is even more of a bullshit concept than "Agile" in the team. > Excepting for trivial-size, freshly formed startups, companies cannot be "Agile", because finance and legal and HR and even marketing have constrains setting the tempo - you cannot just drive them with a sprint as if it was a clock signal. Implementations of Agile at different companies can be an issue, yes. But that is to be expected in any large organization, simply because of scale. It doesn't change the fact that the on-the-ground teams at agile orgs work to a different cadence and approach than historically traditionally structured companies. There are a few different ways to manage interfacing with parts of the org that need to march to a different beat. That always creates friction, and has to be managed properly. Any large org can suffer from hubris, middling management skills and capacity, wasted effort. Problems of scale, I guess.
  - nradov 6mo ago
    Enterprise methodologies like Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) are explicitly designed around managing that friction. Developers may complain about the additional toil and process overhead it imposes on them, but for the organization as a whole this is sometimes the least bad option.