[honestduane]

This is just corporate gaslighting at this point; There is no legitimate reason so many very profitable tech companies need to fire so many when we are not even in a recession according to the United States Government and the treasury and the banks, and its not like they are not making record profits.

They cant say "we are making record profits" and in the same breath say "we need to fire people to survive" that's not how that works. Pick one.

[shmatt]

Making profits does not have to mean funding teams that aren't generating anything significant in terms or product and/or income. Many of these companies have a small portion making most of the profits, and all the others eating them up (see: VR, Voice).

You can do it the Amazon way, cutting products that are bleeding money, or the Salesforce way asking all units to cut 10% across the board, but just keeping failed products and units because "we have money" isn't really a good reason

[noodle]

If they were making record profits, they would be looking to expand their profitable divisions, would they not? They would likely not lay people off, but reorganize internally to move resources away from failing areas and into the clearly thriving, very profitable areas; or start something completely new.

Hiring one good employee is expensive and difficult.

[778hbff]

> Many of these companies have a small portion making most of the profits, and all the others eating them up (see: VR, Voice).

Depends on your time horizon. You can fire allof engineering tomorrow. Costs will drop dramatically, revenue stays where it is. But over time things will stop working and your competiton will take over with new features and being able to keep the lights on when something breaks. Same applies to many departments. Short time dispensible, long term absolutely not.

Ask the Twitter staff. First days the toilets were still clean..

[p0pcult]

But keeping people employed because "we have money" is a really good reason.

[deltree7]

This is a very naive take.

When I invest in Amazon or any other company, I expect Amazon to invest in projects that give me a rate of return that exceeds the 4% that I can easily get from Treasury.

If it can't, Amazon better return my money.

Also, Amazon can't hoard employees that aren't being productive. It is better those employees work for startups and other endeavors.

individually, it sucks short-time, but as a nation we are better off with this system. Tech companies not only have generous severance packages

[jesuscript]

Well, it has long been argued that stock buy back is an indicator a company that doesn’t know how to invest into its own r&d. Not to say that Amazon is the type of company that doesn’t know where to move it’s people, perhaps they don’t know at the moment and would rather save on the labor.

Unless your company is in financial hardship, ditching headcount is similar to a stock buy back. You don’t know how to invest the money, and you don’t know how to invest the people - yet.

[jacobsenscott]

Amazon's economy has only improved in the last 10 years.

These firings are coordinated across large tech companies to reduce salaries and benefits, make employees work longer hours, and in general shift the power away from employees and back to the executives.

[hgsgm]

> Also, Amazon can't hoard employees that aren't being productive.

They absolutely can, and this is a major FAANG recruiting strategy.

[roflyear]

Amazon can't horde the employees, but I would expect them to be more responsible than save up for massive layoffs.

[dragonwriter]

> There is no legitimate reason so many very profitable tech companies need to fire so many

Both hiring and terminating more than they need, depending on which direction they feel the wind is blowing, is the norm; on the termination side, notification requirements (e.g., WARN Act) exacerbate that (I am not saying they are a net negative, just that they encourage pushing the numbers up.)

> They cant say "we are making record profits" and in the same breath say "we need to fire people to survive" that's not how that works

Corporations don’t optimize for odds of survivial; if they are making record profits but could, in their assessment, be making bigger record profits, that’s what they’ll go for.

[O1111OOO]

> This is just corporate gaslighting at this point ..[sip].. They cant say "we are making record profits" and in the same breath say "we need to fire people to survive" that's not how that works. Pick one.

This might be a bit harsh in relation to Amazon.

I saw a comment on another site mentioning total workforce. A quick look at Amazon's Wikipedia page reveals that they employ 1,544,000 as of September 2022. Is 18,000 really that much?

It's like getting rid of 1 person in an office of 100.

There's also the issue of market forces. On March/2022 their stock price was around $164. It was $143 on August/2022 and it's been plummeting since then. Currently at $83.

I also followed a source link on Wikipedia that led me to this Sept/2020 article: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/amazon-to-hire-100-000-in-u... : Amazon to Hire 100,000 in U.S. and Canada. This was during Covid's initial height. I think some people criticized them for this too.

I'm of the position that, in this case, Amazon really has very little choice. These 18,000 might really be excessive. They don't come across as a company that tries to get by with a skeleton crew. They constantly overload to ensure smooth operations.

They are also one of the few "Tech" firms where you can talk to real people at a moment's notice - which is part of this overloading for smooth operations philosophy.

[mc32]

According to Joe Biden, we've been in a recession for two years. But even if he was imprecise as he is wont to be, the Fed is saying there is a slowdown. Companies are not going to wait till they are near bankruptcy to lay people off.

Yes, they overhired but also those people hired got experience and a job. They may have instead landed a different job paying less (otherwise they would not have taken this job) or they may have not landed any job at all if all companies decided not to add that 25% growth in headcount.

[0x4974h]

> Yes, they overhired but also those people hired got experience and a job.

Do you have any idea how much stress and strain this can put on a person, especially if they are the provider for their family?

Please don't make excuses for one of the richest companies in the world abusing their position and treating human beings like expendible machines.

[roflyear]

Was that a gaff you're making a joke about?

[roflyear]

How do we define recession?

[throwawayxy1]

Why would any company fire anybody if they are generating money for them?

[jacobsenscott]

To drive down wages. All tech companies firing thousands of people at the same time is a simple way to do this. Hire back in a year at much reduced salaries and benefits.

[simplotek]

> Why would any company fire anybody if they are generating money for them?

Amazon has been cutting teams that either could not justify their existence or worked in money-losing investments. Alexa was a very public project getting the axe.

[mathattack]

They think these 18,000 aren’t helping making enough money to justify the costs.