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Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

seattletimes.com

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Re: Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

#41

Post by rowyourboat »

everdev wrote: post #34

I've always wondered how companies like Amazon and Apple with piles of cash justify not giving raises or passing laying off people. I understand that you want to be smart with your money but if I'm on the business end of this decision it probably hurts more than getting laid off from a company that's struggling and has no other options.

They justify it by the same reasoning that any other company justifies a layoff. How much money the company makes does not really factor in, they don't exist for the benefit of society.

Re: Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

#42

Post by beambot »

everdev wrote: post #34

I've always wondered how companies like Amazon and Apple with piles of cash justify not giving raises or passing laying off people. I understand that you want to be smart with your money but if I'm on the business end of this decision it probably hurts more than getting laid off from a company that's struggling and has no other options.

> but if I'm on the business end...

How would you justify the raises and keeping the redundant positions -- especially if they were already paid market rates or if they were underperformers?

Re: Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

#43

Post by cobookman »

everdev wrote: post #34

I've always wondered how companies like Amazon and Apple with piles of cash justify not giving raises or passing laying off people. I understand that you want to be smart with your money but if I'm on the business end of this decision it probably hurts more than getting laid off from a company that's struggling and has no other options.

Over-hiring can be an issue as well. Too many cooks in the kitchen isn't a good thing.

Re: Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

#44

Post by piffey »

seibelj wrote: post #37
leggomylibro wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, a lot of the people who were willing to relocate to Seattle are reluctant to stay after years of worsening ostracization and seething resentment.

For me personally, I cannot ever relocate to Seattle because of the weather. I live in Boston, which has its own issues, but at least it's often sunny during the winter and I can get out for a walk most days. I have a lot of family around Seattle and have visited frequently. One year I visited in May and it rained nonstop, oscillating between a soft drizzle to a torrential downpour, for 10 straight days! Too depressi…

Perception is a funny thing. Average annual precipitation for each city and sunny days per year:

Boston: 43.76in / 137 days

Seattle: 34.1in / 152 days

https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/boston/massachusetts/u...

https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/seattle/washington/uni...

Re: Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

#45

Post by Cyranix »

walrus01 wrote: post #17
Animats wrote: post #9

So why do they want a second corporate headquarters?

They have very nearly exhausted the pool of strong technical talent that can be recruited locally within the seattle area, who are not already gainfully employed at some other tech company. Also because building new office campus space in Seattle is becoming a bottleneck. Amazon is spread out through a bunch of temporarily leased buildings until the new towers are finished. Also they have sort of exhausted the number…

On the "talent pool exhaustion" idea: it's common knowledge that almost no one goes to Amazon with the intent of staying there long-term. From what I gather, they're still grappling with people staying just long enough to get a healthy chunk of material benefits before moving on to work that they actually might _want_ to do (helped by having Amazon listed on their resume).

Re: Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

#46

Post by walrus01 »

seibelj wrote: post #37
leggomylibro wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, a lot of the people who were willing to relocate to Seattle are reluctant to stay after years of worsening ostracization and seething resentment.

For me personally, I cannot ever relocate to Seattle because of the weather. I live in Boston, which has its own issues, but at least it's often sunny during the winter and I can get out for a walk most days. I have a lot of family around Seattle and have visited frequently. One year I visited in May and it rained nonstop, oscillating between a soft drizzle to a torrential downpour, for 10 straight days! Too depressi…

I encourage everyone in the Seattle area to constantly remind everyone of how much it rains. Hopefully it will slightly cut down on the number of Californians moving to the PNW.

Re: Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

#47

Post by jxub »

everdev wrote: post #34

I've always wondered how companies like Amazon and Apple with piles of cash justify not giving raises or passing laying off people. I understand that you want to be smart with your money but if I'm on the business end of this decision it probably hurts more than getting laid off from a company that's struggling and has no other options.

Yes, I've also been curious about how the rainforest company can get away with treating its employees supposedly not as well as other top tech companies, and other than AWS, I don't know of any special tech they've got going on for them (maybe the stock options carrot is the materialistic but true answer).

Also, surprisingly, both Amazon and Apple aren't really known for prolific OSS contributions according to their size.

Re: Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

#48

Post by gdulli »

Slansitartop wrote: post #24
taurath wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm, the recruiter spam I get is now only Alexa and AWS - the retail section has all but stopped.

That's pretty terrible because their retail site still needs a lot of work. Sort by stars has always been broken and the problems with counterfeit products and fake reviews needs to be dealt with.

I think it's a safe assumption that search isn't broken, it's just presented whatever way optimizes revenue while still using your choice of sort column as a guideline to keep it from being too blatant a lie.

Re: Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

#49

Post by jxub »

Slansitartop wrote: post #24
taurath wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm, the recruiter spam I get is now only Alexa and AWS - the retail section has all but stopped.

That's pretty terrible because their retail site still needs a lot of work. Sort by stars has always been broken and the problems with counterfeit products and fake reviews needs to be dealt with.

Maybe Bezos decided that on that front mediocre is good enough and decided to move on to other sectors where the competition is more astute than in retail...

Re: Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

#50

Post by walrus01 »

devmunchies wrote: post #33
leggomylibro wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, a lot of the people who were willing to relocate to Seattle are reluctant to stay after years of worsening ostracization and seething resentment.

I moved to Seattle almost 2 years ago now. My main reasons for wanting to leave are the 9 sunless months per year and I feel a little put off by people. I can't put my finger on it, its very nuanced.

> I feel a little put off by people. I can't put my finger on it, its very nuanced.

New York: aggressive aggressive

Seattle or Vancouver: passive aggressive

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