Keith Hoodlet  Jan 6, 2023

Fun fact - #layoffs are a social contagion amongst businesses, and do little (to nothing) to actually help companies recover during economic downturns.

Don’t take my word for it - this comes from years of study and scholarly research:

https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-layoffs-worried/

What explains recent tech layoffs, and why should we be worried? | Stanford News

As layoffs in the tech sector mount, Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer is worried. Research – by him, and others – has shown that the stress layoffs create takes a devastating toll on behavioral and physical health and increases mortality and morbidity substantially. Layoffs literally kill people, he said.

Stanford News
Show threadJ Miller
@securingdev It's an interesting concept but not quite hard science and certainly debatable. While there are "me too" companies whose boards feel pressure to imitate their peers, there are also sound reasons for reducing staff as the economy falters, especially where there is fat that can be trimmed. It's not a one size fits all understanding and you're bound to see mismanagement as with all things.
Jan 6, 2023 at 9:20amMastodon for Android
Show threadPatty KimuraJan 6, 2023
@only1miller @securingdev Corporations, like stock or real estate valuation, have always been influenced in part by emotion - by fear, by enthusiasm - not directly grounded in data. Emotion/belief can be contagious in excessive hiring and copycat firing. Corporations, like bitcoin enthusiasts, insist they're completely fact-based looking at five, three, one year "trends/projections". Meanwhile workers who produce value (you called them "the fat") become undeserved pawns to that fear cycle.
Show threadJ MillerJan 7, 2023
@pattykimura @securingdev hang on... I said there was fat, not that all workers were fat. This includes underperforming employees and staffing in excess of need (hiring for an upward trend prior to the economy shifting downward, for example). We're all flawed humans and none of us are perfect. CEOs and board members are as human as anyone else. Are some of them scumbags? Sure. Some are decent businessmen. All make good and bad decisions. It's the nature of humanity.
Show threadJ MillerJan 8, 2023
@pattykimura @securingdev Hi Patty! I tried to reply last night but it kept failing - please understand that the "fat" referred to are workers who do not produce value or produce significantly below the mean. We've all seen this and it is endemic to large organizations. Large orgs are akin to Blue whales - they take in a ton of water, then eject it again straining out the good krill - or at least they try to. But that's the nature of private enterprise.