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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

#131

Post by spamizbad »

dcolkitt wrote: post #130
spamizbad wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. Many companies (maybe not tech companies) are posting very strong profits. Employee surveys also show people feeling the pressure of being given additional responsibilities due to labor shortages. I suppose you could make the argument companies are both over-working their employees and over-hiring if you're willing to concede these companies are poorly managed... which I think has a kernel of tru…

Wouldn't this be explained by the "quiet quitting" hypothesis? If 10-20% of the employees in an org pretty much stop working completely, then it's pretty natural that the remaining 80-90% are going to feel overworked making up the slack. Also explains why companies are laying off the dead weight resuming hiring almost immediately (like Tesla).

Quiet quitting isn't people refusing to work on the job. It's to merely work hard enough to "meet expectations". So rather than trying to be a straight-A student you only work hard enough to get Cs and Bs.

Anyway, I would say if the Quiet Quitting hypothesis is true it definitely points to a business management failure. If an employee joined your organization highly motivated and a year later feels like going above and beyond is not worth it you did something wrong.

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

#132

Post by bee_rider »

itsoktocry wrote: post #110
ryandrake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just feels like the psychology behind a bank run. 1. Convince people their bank is in trouble. 2. They withdraw all their money. 3. Now the bank really is in trouble. Or 1. Convince people stocks are going to go down. 2. Mass sell-off. 3. Now stocks really are going down. I think this is just a self-fulfilling prophecy where business leaders convinced themselves a slowdown is coming, causing them to take actions t…

> Or 1. Convince people stocks are going to go down Stocks are not the economy. We literally have a cold war with China escalating, a hot war in Europe (which we aren't directly involved in..yet), all after years of loose monetary and fiscal policy, inflation is at generation highs, with rates rising and housing relating prices crashing, and on and on... Maybe HN needs some more serious economic analyses posted if pe…

At least we can get jobs in the MIC I guess.

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

#133

Post by daxfohl »

granshaw wrote: post #39
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #32

Anyone that was around for the "Turn of the Century Crash" may find this familiar. With all the massive scaleups, companies were becoming bloated as hell. They also became fairly sloppy with their money. Time to pay the piper. But unlike some bubbles, there's a real industry, here (like in the 'oughts). It's a return to a [still pretty decent] baseline, as opposed to an implosion to nothing. In the early Web days, th…

I was too young then, but did that crash have the same "everyone and their mother sees it coming and have been talking about it months before" feeling? Cause this "crash" is surely like that – it has to be the most "expected and talked about" one in modern times...

Plenty of people prognosticating a crash every year since 2009 but it never came. Most of us expected a long term crash in 2020 but it was a quick rebound. This year seemed like something was off but maybe just temporary due to supply chains and Ukraine, since spending and employment was still strong. I'd not say a crash is written in stone yet.

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

#134

Post by xeromal »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #43

Tesla was one of the first big tech companies to start this cycle, announcing a 10% layoff in June. Now they're hiring at a rapid clip. https://insideevs.com/news/617007/tesla-hiring-boost-after-l...

Didn't they layoff a lot of labelers after they felt confident in their auto labeling?

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

#135

Post by JumpCrisscross »

im-a-baby wrote: post #128
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be correct to say the Fed's goal is to lower economic growth? I don't think so. It's trying to lower inflation and predicting negative, possibly necessary, side effects. But if you read that quote as saying the Fed is trying to raise unemployment, then it's also saying the Fed is trying to lower growth, which is an odd reading to say the least.

I think we're arguing over the definition of goal and side-effect. Let's say I have a goal of running a marathon, so I decide to start jogging every day. Is my daily jogging a side-effect of my goal to run a marathon? I wouldn't say so. Rather, jogging every day is an explicit course I've set out on with the hopes of achieving my main goal. Daily jogging is a sub-goal of the main goal, if you will. This logic can be…

> Let's say I have a goal of running a marathon, so I decide to start jogging every day. Is my daily jogging a side-effect of my goal to run a marathon?

You can't run a marathon without your daily jogs. Inflation can be lowered without spiking unemployment. It's unlikely. Hence the Fed's messaging. But until recently the Fed forecasted a soft landing, i.e. growth and low unemployment amidst rising rates and falling inflation.

Better analogy: engine temperature. You're driving and keeping an eye on the thermometer. You see the temperature is low and so feel comfortable accelerating. The goal is getting to your destination faster. The low temperature lets you accelerate, which in turn raises the temperature. But raising the engine temperature wasn't the point. It reverses cause and effect to say your goal was to raise engine temperature. It wasn't. Engine temperature was simply a limiting factor you were paying attention to.

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

#136

Post by jeffbee »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #113
jeffbee wrote: post #37

Although I do think an industry downturn is here/coming, I don't think Lyft is part of the trend. Lyft, specifically, is just a bad company. It has never made an annual profit, will never make an annual profit, and is gravely overstaffed for its operations. Liabilities are approaching assets on the balance sheet. They have to cut somewhere. They already shed their useless little autonomous driving division, and I exp…

I believe the bike-share is their most profitable division. Would it make sense to spin that off? It has a de facto monopoly in many markets it operates in

That's cool, I am just vaguely concerned about it. They seem to have tacitly abandoned it in the East Bay area.

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

#137

Post by __Parfait__ »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #43

Tesla was one of the first big tech companies to start this cycle, announcing a 10% layoff in June. Now they're hiring at a rapid clip. https://insideevs.com/news/617007/tesla-hiring-boost-after-l...

Getting talent on the cheap

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

#138

Post by JumpCrisscross »

im-a-baby wrote: post #124
Aunche wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Powell will continue to raise rates until the labor market cools. This is entirely different from "complaining that the labor market is too tight." The Fed has nothing against a tight labor market so long as we don't have high inflation. Imagine you're a doctor and you're telling your patient that you're going to administer chemotherapy to a child until either the cancer goes away or they get too sick. Then you see…

This seems unnecessarily pedantic. Powell has said he believes the tight labor market is driving inflation. It's a totally fair characterization to say "Powell believes the labor market is too tight" given his statements. In this case, "too tight" means "tight to the point of causing inflation"

> Powell has said he believes the tight labor market is driving inflation

No, he has said nominal wage growth is driving inflation. Wages and unemployment are related but not the same thing.

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

#140

Post by ShivShankaran »

curiousgal wrote: post #104
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, rising interest rates have a very direct negative impact on new investments. As new investments contract, demand shrinks for services across the industry. As demand shrinks, fewer employees are needed and companies need to reduce headcount to avoid overspending relative to revenues. There is a cascading effect, but it would be a mistake to attribute it all to a big psychological mistake. When demand goe…

> avoid overspending relative to revenues. Most companies are already making a shit ton of money. Firing people won't keep their stock prices from going down if a recession actually hits. It's moot.

they are also a lot in debt. Almost everyone of them borrowed with corporate bonds in the last 6 months on a very low interest rates.
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