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xynix_ie t1_j4rrga0 wrote

They broke past 150k employees in 2020, now they're at 221k according to the article.

I've spend 20+ years working for giant tech. This is normal even in boom years. I swear every time we would cull the fat we would see a headline like this. It's why we moved cull month to March but then it would be "do layoffs indicate a bad quarter for XXXX?!?!"

No. We just had too many underperformers and we needed to cull and often times that reached 5% which we would fill back up through the year until the next culling.

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bastardoperator t1_j4scpza wrote

I'd disagree. I've worked for multiple fortune 15 companies. You don't fire percentages of people because they're under performers. Hiring is insanely expensive. That's the excuse executives use to justify downsizing and shift blame. The entire purpose of letting people go is to cut costs and if you look at where costs are cut, it's to underperforming areas of the business or portions of the business that produce no revenue like HR, which this article mentions.

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urgjotonlkec t1_j4rm0bq wrote

Feels like a lot of this is just perception driving reality. Tech stocks are going down due to the Fed which is causing tech companies to cut jobs. It doesn't really make much sense because their actual business isn't affected by the Fed, just their stock.

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Youvebeeneloned t1_j4rrwgx wrote

Its more the media is making it all up to make it seem like its a thing.

All these companies cutting jobs have hundreds of thousands of employees. Its literally like 2-3% attrition rates which is well below national average and typical this time of year because this is when any companies whose fiscal years match the calendar year are giving out performance reviews.

Likewise the "large" numbers of tech jobs cut are not being reflected in monthly unemployment numbers which not only continue to be low, but actually are getting lower as of last month... and these are not the type of employees who run out and get Christmas jobs at the mall here...

The only outliers is Twitter because of Musks fuckery... and Salesforce because their CEO fucked up royally with hiring over COVID. Outside of that I would not bat an eye at even 5-6k job loss in the tech industry... since thats only slightly higher than the normal yearly 2-3k.

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cubobob t1_j4v3bwt wrote

Also, are they not doing this every year? Scrap up 1 to 5%, Close some departments, deprecate some tech, get new people, open new departments. Aside from the Twitter fuckup of course.

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wolfishlygrinning t1_j4shsoh wrote

Well that's not quite true. The fed rate going up increases the value of a current dollar over a future dollar. That makes investing in future growth less important and current profits more important. Thus all the layoffs and profit pumping.

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urgjotonlkec t1_j4si76b wrote

That argument gets trotted out a lot, but it doesn't actually make any sense in the current environment. Real rates are currently negative (inflation is higher than interest rates) so actually future profits are worth MORE now.

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Familiar-Turtle OP t1_j4rftvw wrote

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is contemplating cutting about 5% of its workforce, or about 11,000 roles, U.K broadcaster Sky News reported on Tuesday, citing sources.

The reported layoffs would be the latest in the U.S. technology sector, where companies like Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc have announced retrenchment exercise in response to slowing demand and deteriorating economy.

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Newhereeeeee t1_j4robjt wrote

Some people will say it’s because ChatGPT. Some will say they over-hired in the pandemic. Could be both imo. Microsoft would have inside information on how they can use ChatGPT to automate work but I doubt they’d fire 5% percent of staff before testing it out.

Think they’re having layoffs to reduce staff count and then they’re going to see how they can automate work and then announce more layoffs.

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Flaky-Illustrator-52 t1_j4vu098 wrote

They invested in OpenAI to use ChatGPT to enhance their product suite, not to replace workers

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joeblo987123 t1_j4rxebk wrote

Apple is the only remaining FAANG without large scale layoffs

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The_Griddy t1_j4s6mla wrote

Google has not had layoffs

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AntifaDoesntExist t1_j4ti0dw wrote

Google was laying people off last year. True innovators.

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neuronexmachina t1_j4wkojl wrote

Do you have a source for that? According to this they haven't had layoffs yet, but it's widely expected they'll announce them in the near future:

>Although several major companies across the tech industry have announced mass layoffs as rising inflation and uncertain macroeconomic conditions fuel recession fears, Alphabet Inc., the parent company of search giant Google, has been obviating this undesirable. The tech behemoth is yet to announce any major layoff, despite several reports of upcoming job cuts inside the company.
However, Alphabet employees will not be immune to this industry-wide layoffs for too long. Employees at Google anticipate an imminent announcement of a huge layoffs, according to reports.
In November, The Information had reported that Alphabet was planning to lay off nearly 10,000 low performing employees starting early 2023 in order to curb costs.
Slumping ad market has weighed heavily on Google's bottom line, which in turn has made investors urge the company to seek avenues to cut expenses. Executives at Alphabet are seemingly more focused to cut down costs of projects and make the company more efficient.

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AntifaDoesntExist t1_j4wn0td wrote

I live in Seattle and work here. They do small layoffs all the time, which gets a lot less attention. Here's a 'source' for one such event:

https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/21/meta_google_layoffs/

This isn't even the one I was thinking of though. They hit GCP support a while back. That's the one that raised some eyebrows. People briefly questioned what direction GCP was headed when it happened, because everyone else was on a hiring spree. No time to dig for media coverage on it right now.

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biglakenorth t1_j4vobe5 wrote

Due to a decline from the huge profits during the pandemic.

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Fragrant-Cheek-4952 t1_j4rr4xt wrote

The tech industry is bleeding.

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AntifaDoesntExist t1_j4ti45i wrote

It's not though. It's most HR people from Amazon. Wouldn't surprise me if that's MS too.

Edit: But meta for sure fucked up lol. I cant stand bitmoji on a 7 inch screen for free, I damn sure don't want to strap it to my face and pay for it.

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jpark116 t1_j4v49c4 wrote

"A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment in an email to Gizmodo, calling the reports a “rumor.” However, Business Insider reported that according to one person familiar with the matter"

​

Taken from bloomberg arcticle... this is stupid.

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MagicManTX84 t1_j4rgkw6 wrote

Already being done. I have a friend who works in the DFW area that was laid off last week. Fraud unit.

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garlopf t1_j4ridmt wrote

Microsoft buys ChatGPT, Microsoft slash thousands of jobs. Coincidence? I think not...

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[deleted] t1_j4rid9g wrote

[deleted]

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Flaky-Illustrator-52 t1_j4vu5nh wrote

ChatGPT has a 0% chance of taking anyone's jobs, not even those of journalists. It's a LLM, not an intelligence

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