I am annoyed at how much coverage of these recurring "Big Gorilla lays off around 10.000 people" is basically just a rehash of the company press release, with not a single journalist asking how it's possible that all of these big tech companies made the same exact mistake of hiring too many people, while simultaneously showing record profits.
Like, if a 'rigorous review' finds 12.000 redundancies, why does nobody question leadership about how this was allowed to happen?
Not one critical note.
Amazon: 18.000
Alphabet/Google: 12.000
Meta/Facebook: 11.000
Microsoft: 10.000
Salesforce: 8.000
And there's probably more that I am forgetting right now. All very similar percentages of the total workforce, clearly the kind of "you must cut this many" move that's been passed down from on high, and yet pretty much all reporters are nodding along with "post-pandemic spending shift, and weakening global economy" 🙄
I know I saw a thing on here about how it's essentially a viral thing, with one company starting it, and others then following suit, simply because it's a thing now, but I don't remember where.
It's not my job, though, while it is for these journalists and reporters. Do your fucking job, make them afraid of the coverage that might follow these sorts of vaguely-worded press releases.
This looks like it's indeed that article. Thank you, various people who linked it in the replies 🙂
Copycat behaviour, layoffs kill people due to the stress imposed, doesn't really improve anything, etc.
https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-layoffs-worried/
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.
@sindarina Precisely the same story when everybody moved work to India and then China.
This is even doubly strange as if they would be embracing remote work, they could hire across the globe, including parts of the US where living is cheaper than SF.
One can only wonder what happened to leadership.
Sindarina, Edge Case Detective
Christian Lynbech