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Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

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Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#15

Ask HN: Isn't recession just mass hysteria ? Layoffs leading to more layoffs leading to the entire economy slowing down ?

This is definitely something considered by economists; Keynes called it "animal spirits" or more boringly "expectations". If people think the economy is likely to be bad they're likely to want to take defensive action early .. causing the economy to be worse.

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#16

Ask HN: Isn't recession just mass hysteria ? Layoffs leading to more layoffs leading to the entire economy slowing down ?

Macroeconomics is economics plus psychology. Broader trends in the economy have elements of human behavior affecting them.

If you see cloudy skies, and the weather reports suggest "maybe hurricane, maybe not", and your neighbors are boarding up their windows, you might be driven to action as well.

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#18
post #3

Where are we heading if every company drop 10-20% of their staff?

All these companies have vastly overhired. Think of your own peers and colleagues. How many are a) utterly useless or b) competent but don't have anything to do so they spend time working on mostly pointless projects to improve their CV?

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#19

Ask HN: Isn't recession just mass hysteria ? Layoffs leading to more layoffs leading to the entire economy slowing down ?

Yes!

Both the bubble and the crash are almost purely psychological. It's greed and fear coming in waves. There can be technical fundamentals, but to take the example of Bitcoin, you don't need any technical fundamentals. Humans can create and destroy value on top of a very complex random number generator.

Re: Lyft to lay off about 700 employees in second round of job cuts

#20
post #3

Where are we heading if every company drop 10-20% of their staff?

All these companies have vastly overhired. Think of your own peers and colleagues. How many are a) utterly useless or b) competent but don't have anything to do so they spend time working on mostly pointless projects to improve their CV?

How many are a) utterly useless or b) competent but don't have anything to do so they spend time working on mostly pointless projects to improve their CV?

I hope my colleagues aren't reading this and looking at me.

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