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Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

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Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#61

Post by unforeseen9991 »

rvz wrote: post #25
raziel2701 wrote: post #13

It's crazy that AMZN announces this and the stock goes up in after hours trading. People are losing their livelihoods yet rich people only care about the potential higher profits. This is very disconnected from reality, amzn needs consumers to buy their products. If layoffs keep piling up higher and deeper something is going to break and hello recession!

> It's crazy that AMZN announces this and the stock goes up in after hours trading. No it isn't. It is quite typical for a companies stock to spike up after a layoff announcement especially when the number was higher than initially reported. And as always totally expected.

It'd be crazy if they didn't. Especially after the covid bubble and running headlong into economic uncertainty.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#62

Post by phpisthebest »

eqmvii wrote: post #41
VincentEvans wrote: post #36

Here’s a thought that has been percolating in my mind for a bit since these “market adjustments” began a month or two back. Somehow at some point, in what perhaps could be blamed on the ever-hated mass produced MBAs - companies got really comfortable with the “it’s not personal, it’s just good business” of letting go of their employees for a slightest reason, or sometimes for no reason at all - just to make it look t…

Companies are in the business of predicting the market in a quarter, a year, 5 years, etc. They got it wrong and overhired. There's ample evidence of that, and of cooling demand - now and in the future.

They got sucked into the "new normal" that never was, and was never going to be.

We are seeing a massive return to the old normal, which means people are going back to offices (not WFH) people are going back to shopping in person not online, people are going back to eating in restaurants not using Grub Hub or ordering online. etc etc etc

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#63

Post by asdff »

sys_64738 wrote: post #22
raziel2701 wrote: post #13

It's crazy that AMZN announces this and the stock goes up in after hours trading. People are losing their livelihoods yet rich people only care about the potential higher profits. This is very disconnected from reality, amzn needs consumers to buy their products. If layoffs keep piling up higher and deeper something is going to break and hello recession!

A business is run to maximize shareholder value. Cutting costs is part of that equation.

It's not really maximizing shareholder value though. In this case its like cutting off your leg and claiming you lost weight.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#65

Post by asdff »

adoxyz wrote: post #18
raziel2701 wrote: post #13

It's crazy that AMZN announces this and the stock goes up in after hours trading. People are losing their livelihoods yet rich people only care about the potential higher profits. This is very disconnected from reality, amzn needs consumers to buy their products. If layoffs keep piling up higher and deeper something is going to break and hello recession!

Laying people off reduces one of the biggest costs to an organization, thus making it more profitable (even if in the short term), thus the stock price rises. Stocks are always forward looking and investors believe that by cutting down costs and re-focusing will make amazon worth more in the future.

How can a company be more profitable with less workers if the workers are the source of the profits?

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#66

Post by Firmwarrior »

m00x wrote: post #35
nfRfqX5n wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can make L5/6 to get that salary then they're probably pretty good actually

You can make it to L5/6 without being a good engineer. I interviewed several Uber/Amazon engineers and they couldn't solve a simple problem (very easy problem that most bootcamp grads could do). A lot of them get there by being interviewed by other bad engineers, and just float when the market is strong, or use politics to get in a good position. A guy at my company just merges library upgrade PRs blindly. That's all…

> I interviewed several Uber/Amazon engineers and they couldn't solve a simple problem (very easy problem that most bootcamp grads could do).

I don't know you personally, and I don't want to start a flame war here, but if there's one thing FAANG senior engineers are good at, it's solving simple coding problems in interviews

If you're saying they can't actually proactively get useful work done on their own, or quickly ship quality products, or talk to customers, I could understand. But basically the only thing that you can be 100% sure of is that almost everyone at those big companies passed some arbitrary coding tests

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#67

Post by [deleted] »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #58
VincentEvans wrote: post #36

Here’s a thought that has been percolating in my mind for a bit since these “market adjustments” began a month or two back. Somehow at some point, in what perhaps could be blamed on the ever-hated mass produced MBAs - companies got really comfortable with the “it’s not personal, it’s just good business” of letting go of their employees for a slightest reason, or sometimes for no reason at all - just to make it look t…

> We are seeing a bit of a market downturn - but it hasn’t hit Amazon pocketbook now, has it? Are they in danger of running out of money? What happened to “people are our most important resource”? Companies plan for where the market is going, not last quarter’s results. It’s fully clear to everyone that the economy has shifted dramatically. They are adjusting as appropriate. Also, these people will be laid off with s…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#68

Post by bushbaba »

jjcon wrote: post #11
wdb wrote: post #5

Are there enough companies that can afford all the tens of thousands of fired workers SV salaries if all these big companies are firing them?

Most of the tech companies are letting a mix of recent hires, corporate middle management and in amazon’s case some logistics warehouse workers and specialty project engineers were let go. It’s a pretty eclectic, diverse group of people so its not as hard as it sounds to reabsorb into other companies. If they were all engineers or all HR there might be issues but in an already over-employed economy already 17k jobs w…

I disagree there’s simply not enough FANG level high paying jobs to fill all these employees into. Many will end up at startups and other industries with a paycut. Few companies are willing to pay a HR or Recruiter 300k/year comp.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#69

Post by LudwigNagasena »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #48
m00x wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make it to L5/6 without being a good engineer. I interviewed several Uber/Amazon engineers and they couldn't solve a simple problem (very easy problem that most bootcamp grads could do). A lot of them get there by being interviewed by other bad engineers, and just float when the market is strong, or use politics to get in a good position. A guy at my company just merges library upgrade PRs blindly. That's all…

Which companies do have good mid level engineers then, if you believe L5's at Amazon are stupid?

He didn’t say that L5’s at Amazon are stupid. He said that there are lots of L5’s at Amazon who are bad engineers. It doesn’t even have to be a majority rather than a noticeable minority.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#70

Post by unity1001 »

raziel2701 wrote: post #13

It's crazy that AMZN announces this and the stock goes up in after hours trading. People are losing their livelihoods yet rich people only care about the potential higher profits. This is very disconnected from reality, amzn needs consumers to buy their products. If layoffs keep piling up higher and deeper something is going to break and hello recession!

You just summarized entire das Kapital...
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