Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback

Post by fahayekwasright » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 12:41 AM UTC

jobu wrote: post #55

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.

Laying off people is just a tool to get rid of low performers and cut costs. From the article: "A manager in one unit making cuts said his team was briefed that Bezos and the Amazon brass wanted to put more pressure on managers to weed out lower performers and enforce spending discipline after the rapid growth of recent years." Layoffs seem kinda shitty, but it's usually better than firing with cause. The worker will…

Post by dboreham » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 12:44 AM UTC

amznthroway wrote: post #69

The hiring freeze has already been horrendous. We're told to keep hitting all our goals even if we lose people and can't hire to backfill. Now we're just straight up losing people to layoffs? Keeping the lights on alone is barely possible with the resources we have. It would be one thing if we were in dire straights as a company. Imho, this is just short-sighted nonsense so some senior leader can hit an arbitrary goa…

Post by pinewurst » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

Cyranix wrote: post #45

walrus01 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Post by davidw » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 12:52 AM UTC

KallDrexx wrote: post #76

amznthroway wrote: post #69

The hiring freeze has already been horrendous. We're told to keep hitting all our goals even if we lose people and can't hire to backfill. Now we're just straight up losing people to layoffs? Keeping the lights on alone is barely possible with the resources we have. It would be one thing if we were in dire straights as a company. Imho, this is just short-sighted nonsense so some senior leader can hit an arbitrary goa…

That's funny if they've had a hiring freeze since last week I got contacted by an Amazon recruiter wanting me to move to Seattle

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 12:55 AM UTC

lev99 wrote: post #35

myroon5 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"less than 10% of their Seattle staff" even less than 1%

The problem is "a few hundred" is an undefined number. 400 would be about 1%, which would be fairly reported as a few hundred. My ceiling number is very high, but I would believe more than 1% are let go.