Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 308 posts

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

#211

Post by delecti »

nkjnlknlk wrote: post #198
dilyevsky wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In short: downward pressure on programmer wages. Entry level programmers maybe - lets see how many can actually stick around past first midterm

People have been making these doomer claims since 00s to my memory and all that has been proven since then is we don't have enough software engineers.

I almost feel like coding is currently what typing was 60 years ago. "Typist" isn't really a job anymore, but stenographer and transcriptionist are. Likewise, I think that coding needs to become something basically everyone can do a tiny bit of, but only a relatively smaller group do as their entire job.

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

#212

Post by s1artibartfast »

programmertote wrote: post #152
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…

> 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. As someone who has only taken Econ 101 in college, can you explain 1) why the demand shrinks when there's not enough new investments? Shouldn't demand at least be the same overall (I mean I can see that fewer ne…

To put it simply, a portion of demand today is speculative and based on the expectation of greater demand in the future.

for example, you might buy 2x the material and labor you need for today's demand, because you need them to meet tomorrows higher demand.

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

#213

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

jstx1 wrote: post #3

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

Tech meme stocks != every company.

If the Department of Defense & Amazon & Walmart start laying off 10-20% of staff - that would mean something. All of these tech layoffs don't even represent 1% of tech jobs so far. Let alone anything meaningful for the overall US economy.

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

#214

Post by tqi »

freshfunk wrote: post #142
tqi wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh awesome, would love to ask a few questions about your experience: 1. What did it feel like day to day as a person working in the industry during that time, and did it differ from the "bubble" period prior or more "normal" period immediately following? 2. How long after the bottom before the recovery felt "real" to you, and did you see companies / people change their behavior?

Not OP but first off I'd say that while some things feel similar, I don't think we're close to how bad it was back then if you look at the magnitude of the fall out. So take these answers understanding that things were worse back then. 1. It felt like a nuclear winter for tech jobs between 2000/2001 and 2004/2005. Jobs were available but it was way more competitive to get them and you were a lot less likely to get th…

Super interesting, thanks for sharing!

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

#215

Post by bluedino »

pc86 wrote: post #189
bluepizza wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The camcorder stays still, and you need to press the button twice. Couldn't have taken the guy more than 5 mins.

5 minutes to press a button twice? I'll do it in 4.

Union button-pushers.

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

#216

Post by lsllc »

im-a-baby wrote: post #30
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Powell complained about the labour market being tight No, he didn’t [1]. He justified a rate rise in a faltering economy by pointing to the labor market’s strength. Were the labor market weaker we’d be in stagflation and monetary policy would have no room to manoeuvre. [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/mediacenter/files/FOMCprescon...

Powell has previously said that he wants higher unemployment. He believes this is the only way to decrease demand and bring down prices. > The labor market continues to be out of balance, with demand for workers substantially exceeding the supply of available workers. The labor force participation rate showed a welcome uptick in August but is little changed since the beginning of the year. FOMC participants expect su…

Zorg-onomics?

"Excuse me, sir. The council is worried about the economy heating up. They wondered if it'd be possible to fire 500000. Maybe from one of the smaller companies where no one would notice..."

"Fire one million".

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119116/

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

#217

Post by ulchar »

fny wrote: post #193
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...

This is all pretty standard culling. They're just trying to scare people into recession think (i.e. don't try to negotiate a raise) and rehire cheaper outsourced or--get ready for this buzz word--"insourced" labor. Remember, the big tech cos also increased their work force sizes dramatically during COVID, so a more aggressive reduction push is understandable.

What would "insourced" mean exactly? Cheap remote domestic hires?

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

#218

Post by gryBrd1987 »

vkou wrote: post #103
gryBrd1987 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Powell has been saying for months he wants people to save and pull cash out of the economy. This is intentional because DC decided tech workers were undermining Washingtons of course most correct and immutable control over agency. Why if all these people kept earning and could acquire more assets and live comfortable, politicians and uber rich would have no place in our society. The fundamentals must be maintain…

Somehow, I doubt that Marxism-Leninism and a destruction of social class in America is going to be achieved on the backs of... Comfortable, gruntled white collar employees making 200k-500k/year from selling ads.

Mostly I was agreeing with the analogy of a run on a bank. Fed pulled out of funding the economy as it was. Less money for them to spend on coffees, Ubers, etc.; less to “trickle down” given the uncertainty of grandpa Powell’s intention to bring pain to households (except his own of course; he’s got enough to be insulated from his actions).

If you want to go on a specific tangent involving dead men’s philosophy, be my guest. I was merely attempting to illustrate how apt the bank run analogy is.

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

#219

Post by newaccount2021 »

forgotusername6 wrote: post #199
datalopers wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not my experience at all. I work for a big company and we've been under staffed for basically as long as I can remember. The default position is not enough people to do what we need to do.

No post body was provided.

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

#220

Post by s1artibartfast »

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.

How far the stock goes down will depend on profitability.

Would you rather own a more or less profitable company?

Post reply on HN