[idkwhattocallme]

For the most part, I'm indifferent to layoffs. Companies over hire and then course correct. It's part of the game. But for MSFT, it rubs me the wrong way. In the past 5 years, their stock has soared (150% on stock and doubled in valuation). They are insanely profitable ($82B profit). They are diverse (no existential business risk). The fact that they are unceremoniously laying off 30K of the people that helped them get there drives home it's just a paycheck, do your job, but know it can and will end when convenient for the company. I know folks will argue, low performers, but really. This "productivity apps" company hired them, onboarded them, made $82B in profit, surely they can figure out how to uplevel folks. Also how do you have a layoff every couple of months for 3 years. Thinking about the middle class in the previous generation, it was unions that effectively ensured a labor job meant a secure future. I wonder if that's the solution (again).

[stego-tech]

> Thinking about the middle class in the previous generation, it was unions that effectively ensured a labor job meant a secure future. I wonder if that's the solution (again).

It is, and they are. It’s why Reagan fired ATC strikers and blackballed them. It’s why private enterprise stockpiled machine guns and chemical weapons against strikers back in the Gilded Age. It’s why companies will spend billions to block Unions rather than just give workers the few million or so more they need over a decade to just maintain a standard of living. It’s why they’ll close down stores, warehouses, offshore jobs and outsource to contractors to penalize Unions.

Unions are a direct response to the inequality of Capital allocation and distribution.

[aydyn]

Unions are not effective when there's such a surplus of labor and people willing to break lines. It wont work in today's tech labor market.

[wingspar]

Wasn’t the PATCO ATC strike illegal?

[toomuchtodo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_and_unions

I know, I know, "union bad." I guess people will say that until all that is left is a person to watch the Machine, and a dog to bite the person if they touch the Machine. Or all the jobs are offshored to the cheapest labor on the globe.

[jxjnskkzxxhx]

> until all that is left is a person to watch the Machine, and a dog to bite the person if they touch the Machine

Hey that's actually a great line. It might be even better than the original, where the person is there to feed the dog.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/01/30/future-factory/

[johnnyanmac]

"union bad" people are why Microsoft can just do this. And do it again in 3 months. And in 6 months.

If people would rather lose all job stability their parents had as a career instead of coming together to work in their best interests, what can you really do?

[sokoloff]

10 unions was evidently not enough to avoid this outcome. Perhaps if it went to 11, it would be “unions good”?

[RajT88]

This was an interesting read which cropped up on LinkedIn for me today:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/zoology-us-microsoft-old-time...

Layoffs have always been part of the game. There is reason to believe this latest set of layoffs are different (Scott Hanselmann himself said so on LinkedIn recently - "Laying off my staff is never easy, but this is the first time I've had to lay people off for someone else's business goals" whatever that means).

[runjake]

Didn't Satya or somebody state in recent months that it was a tactic to get rid of low performers? I believe Meta is doing something similar.

Edit: Allegedly not.

https://www.financialexpress.com/life/technology-microsoft-c...

"Nadella addressed the recent layoffs, clarifying that the decision was not based on individual job performance. “This is a structural change, not a reflection of how people were performing,” Nadella explained. He emphasized that Microsoft is shifting its strategic focus, with a renewed emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), which the company views as a key driver of its long-term vision and growth."

[belter]

AI is the convenient scapegoat. Companies frame mass layoffs as a strategic shift toward AI to boost margins and excite investors, but in reality, it signals a deeper business crisis. Not one of these 9,000 jobs will be meaningfully replaced by AI anytime soon.

[atomicnumber3]

Also, if it were actually about "low performers", this wouldn't be in the news. They'd just be terminated during/before perf review.

[daxfohl]

Shifting focus is not narrowing focus. They should be able to shift employees accordingly too.

[bitbasher]

I'm indifferent to layoffs. I dislike layoffs these days because it directly fuels the "AI is replacing our jobs" brainrot and then fuels the "AI is the future" hype train.

It's not impossible for this to be Microsoft's way to keep the AI flywheel spinning.

[justin66]

I think we can all agree that the real damage caused by layoffs is their effect on the publicity surrounding AI, not their effect on humans and their well being.

[DebtDeflation]

>how do you have a layoff every couple of months for 3 years

It has absolutely nothing to do with managing out low performers or managing existential business risk. It has everything to do with managing annual EPS to Wall Street's expectations. There was an inflection point at the end of 2022 where Revenue growth slowed so to maintain Earnings growth, costs had to be cut continuously, and this process is still playing out.

[pjmlp]

Well, it kind of tells why people shouldn't blindly side with their employers.

It is a service, one side gives work, the other pays the bills, nothing else.

Be a good teammate, that is all.

[johnnyanmac]

1. Over hiring isn't really a thing here. They knew what they were doing and knew they could just kick people out if things changed. I don't like that term to describe the situation.

2. That's how it is for most of these high profile layoffs. They are profitable but do layoffs so they can report record revenue later. It's not about "we can't afford workers", it's about blatant greed in 90% of cases this decade.

3. Yeah, talent retention is gone this decade. They don't care about growth or fostering future labor.

[_DeadFred_]

Love the modern lexicon, where people losing their livelihood is just part of a 'game'.

[aeternum]

Not everyone wants to be "upleveled" which often actually means work on something completely different.

This idea that companies must be the social safety net is deeply flawed, you want companies to take risks on new business lines that may not pan out. That's how we get innovation. In order to have that, you must not heavily penalize taking those risks.

[sydbarrett74]

Unfortunately, none of this matters to Wall Street, which wants eternal profit growth.

[wonderwonder]

The issue is they are laying off US workers and then importing Indian workers to replace them via 3rd party contractors. I saw a post on X today which essentially said "Ai will not replace your job, an Indian with Ai will replace your job" - this was posted by an Indian and he was completely right. Microsoft is actively laying off people with 150k salaries and replacing them with offshore workers earning a 10th of the salary.

At the same time our politicians appear to be looking everywhere for a solution to increasing US jobs except for right where the issue is. Everyone else sees it but our politicians are willfully blind.

[trod1234]

That is one of the issues, yes.

The main issue though is one of demographics.

Like Japan, we have insufficient young people to do the jobs and produce what's needed to support the old.

Worse, the old have utilized money printing and their privileged position to enrich themselves, and in the process it is tearing the country apart, and through economic manipulation force conscripting the young at suppressed wages to pay their debts off (i.e. social security).

Thomas Paine would have a lot of similar things to say if he were alive today, specifically about dead men ruling.

The economics given such lopsided movement cause chaotic disruption and deflate and are unsustainable.

You are wrong insofar as they'll be earning a 10th of the salary. That may happen upfront, but in terms of purchasing power it will reach parity much more quickly given the macro monetary dynamics going on.

When reading history, I could never imagine how bad it would need to get to make a multi-generational citizen abandon their home country and immigrate elsewhere.

I have my answer today. They do so when there is no reasonable path to a survivable future.

There are times where a reasonable person can see and know everything will burn, because there is nothing that can stop it, and the only thing you can do is remove yourself and your family from the path of that burn.

[darth_avocado]

> Microsoft is actively laying off people with 150k salaries and replacing them with offshore workers earning a 10th of the salary.

I know the talking points on HN like to portray Indian developers as cheap, low quality labor, but contrary to popular belief, they aren’t getting workers for $15k. A Median senior developer earns almost $90k in India in Microsoft.

https://www.levels.fyi/companies/microsoft/salaries/software...

[triceratops]

How are they "importing" workers and still keeping them "offshore"?

[pllbnk]

I think you are highlighting the truly important bit here - that megacorporations are economy's cancer. I am on the side that work is work, there should be no emotional connection, except for the personal relationships. It is fine that companies hire when they need resources and fire when they don't. However, a small company might lay off 10 people and they will quickly disperse in the available work pool. However, laying off 30k people at once does serious damage to the market and the prospects of those laid off people.

[heathrow83829]

a company doesn't keep you because you performed well. they keep an employee because they need them to be more profitable, nothing more, nothing less.

[trod1234]

In fairness they aren't a real company anymore, they are more like state apparatus/granted monopoly.

The profitability they embraced was derived from surveillance capitalism which comes from a money-printer seeing as the government is the one paying for it.

It was short-term up-front profit, followed by what inevitably comes after where they pay it back and more. They are laying people off because they wanted that short term profit more than they wanted to do business. There is a potential that they may chase this having the same dynamics as deflation, given that free money is largely no longer available suddenly (which pops the bubble).

The people making those decisions knew the laws and countries would catch up to them eventually but they still did it.

[jimt1234]

I was raised in a union-supported household. I've posted about it on HN before, but the tl;dr is that I'm still conflicted because:

- Pro: My father only graduated high school, yet was able to support a middle-class family - a house, two cars, 3 children, healthcare, etc., all with his union trucking job. That is almost unheard of today.

- Con: My father often talked about the corruption, like work being throttled to meet only the minimum output requirements in the union contract, and guys just sitting around, playing cards for half-a-day because it only took them a few hours to meet the requirements. (And new guys would get "talked to" in the parking lot if they tried to do too much work.)

[antifa]

What's really the difference between union guys playing a little bit of cards on the boss's dime and the boss paying you poverty wages so he can upgrade to a bigger yacht? might as well pick the option that's going to have your back.

[geodel]

Talking about stock price is in fact indication of layoffs being working not other way round. I don't think people are arguing against "job is just a paycheck" in last 5 years. In the same vein for company "employee is just a cost".

Union may save job for few who have job but people who don't (and they are lot more and increasing) are not gonna get helped by any union.

[hardwaresofton]

> Union may save job for few who have job but people who don't (and they are lot more and increasing) are not gonna get helped by any union.

Note that in some countries, unions extend to cover workers who are not even part of the union. Heard about this from some french friends:

> Collective bargaining agreements (conventions collectives) may be negotiated between employers and labour unions covering a company or group of companies (accords d’entreprise), or between employers’ associations and labour unions covering an industry as a whole; in the latter case, the government may decide that the collective agreement covers even those employers who are not members of the employers’ association and is therefore mandatory throughout the industry.

https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publication...

Not saying it's the right solution for $COUNTRY, but I was certainly surprised when I heard of this

[sershe]

Why do we need a solution to a non-existent problem? Middle class is doing just fine e.g. https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2025/05/07/the-middle-w...

[daxfohl]

They're still hiring though. If layoffs are a prereq for hiring fresh blood, maybe it's worth the cost? Especially if hiring is weighted toward new grads and junior engineers, which are in the midst of a historically bad employment market right now. It's a stretch, but just a thought.

[heathrow83829]

the first responsibility of any company is profitability. they have no economic, moral or ethical obligation to keep employees (no matter how well they performed), if it doesn't help them be more profitable. this should not be news.

I think "low performance" is typically just a scapegoat. the real reason is they simply don't need that many empolyees to maximize profitability.

[CommenterPerson]

This is Milton Freidman hype and brainwashing. A company profiting in a society has a responsibility towards that society. In Germany, they accomplish this by having one union representative on the board. Profit at any cost leads to a society where workers are paid just enough to prevent starvation so that there are workers.

[dsr_]

Let me correct that for you:

corporations feel no moral or ethical obligation towards their employees.

Whether or not that should be the case -- and I think it should not be -- it is.

[triceratops]

> the first responsibility of any company is profitability

No that's what makes management the most money because they're paid in stock. So they want you to think it's legally required.

The first responsibility of a company is "act in the shareholders' best interests".

Is it in shareholders' best interests to have > 20% unemployment?

[cosmicgadget]

General financial health is a better goal.

[Eggs-n-Jakey]

it's not even that man, it shows insecurity in their growth and future business, they're terrified they took the wrong bet on their massive investments into Ai, or the perception of those investments.

A layoff is a complete and utter failure in leadership top down.

Then applying for 6k visas that are going to be compensated well below industry levels is just a complete joke.

[wing-_-nuts]

What nonsense. I've been in tech for ~ 20 years and it's literally taken me from living below the poverty line on ssi disability to fully financially independent. This is the one career where I could have accomplished that. It's basically 'disability proof'.