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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

#181

Post by nxm »

Waterluvian wrote: post #176
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…

Most workers at large companies are seen as fungible cogs. Even the engineers. What you describe feels, unfortunately, like an antiquated idea from the 1900s. I think we need more unions, more automation, and more social security. We are racing towards a future where there simply won’t be enough “jobs” for everyone and the companies sure as heck aren’t going to look out. Companies have no soul and the humans that run…

I disagree. What you describe is Western Europe with depressed wages and less innovation and dynamic economy. You can’t regulate/unionize into prosperity.

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

#182

Post by robofanatic »

i_have_an_idea wrote: post #96
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…

I have no opinion on the MBA bit, but I think you're spot on about people starting to treat companies the way the companies are treating them. ~10 years ago, when I got my first job, I was in the minority, pretty much the only person cynical about big companies' claims how "people are our most important resource", how important is the company "culture" and all of that corporate kumbaya. And, at that point, the vast m…

well salaries also went up significantly in the last decade

as per levels.fyi Senior Principal SDE at Amazon makes about a million $$$. Entry level salary is $168K

https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/software-en...

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

#183

Post by alecbz »

monero-xmr wrote: post #4

How is Google avoiding any layoffs? I know their structure is such that stockholders supposedly can’t force any changes, but it’s hard to justify being the only company without any cuts. Their stock is falling and they still have a single cash cow for over 80% of their revenue despite over a decade of attempts to diversify.

> Their stock is falling

FWIW Google's still beating the S&P 500 since pre-COVID (+19% vs +14%)

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

#184

Post by dboreham »

anonreeeeplor wrote: post #148

I have interviewed with Amazon several times. Every time I don’t make it through because I realized the people in many of the roles were (a) not the best people (b) I seemed to know way more than many of them about their domain (c) they kept trying to offer me horizontal transfer (d) they wanted to pay me less than I know I am worth. My impression is Amazon is a factory tuned to hire and churn a sort of middle of the…

I haven't worked there, but I got the impression going back decades that Amazon is a terrible place to work. That said, I have a friend who worked there and had really only positive things to say. And he quit the valley startup where we both worked when things became rocky there, and went back to a different job at Amazon. So YMMV it seems.

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

#185

Post by [deleted] »

metadat wrote: post #133
gwright wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost as if TANSTAAFL.

First encounter with this initialism. TANSTAAFL / TINSTAAFL "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tanstaafl.asp Also, if I may add: I wish there were more substance in your comment. This non-sequitur was disappointing.

[deleted]

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

#186

Post by lapcat »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #162
dkrich wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a great deal of this situation is narrative based. People are generally terrible at predicting earnings six months out as well as recessions and if we get a major recession it would easily be the most widely anticipated recession in history. First it starts with higher than expected CPI followed by hawkish fed policy. People learned their lesson last cycle and became worried that rate hikes as in past cycles…

When the fed commits to hiking rates to slow the economy, it almost always leads to recession. You'd have to be a hyper optimist to not plan for a recession, as an individual, or a business. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/29/federal-reserve-rec...

A lot of recessions are relatively short, and don't affect big tech companies much in the long run: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit...

Someone tell Apple there was a "Great Recession". A little thing called iPhone made that irrelevant for them.

I started my career during the Great Recession. Wasn't a problem for me. A recession is an aggregate, but during every economic condition there are both losers and winners. You don't want to overreact to every shift in the wind.

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

#187

Post by Apocryphon »

nxm wrote: post #181
Waterluvian wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most workers at large companies are seen as fungible cogs. Even the engineers. What you describe feels, unfortunately, like an antiquated idea from the 1900s. I think we need more unions, more automation, and more social security. We are racing towards a future where there simply won’t be enough “jobs” for everyone and the companies sure as heck aren’t going to look out. Companies have no soul and the humans that run…

I disagree. What you describe is Western Europe with depressed wages and less innovation and dynamic economy. You can’t regulate/unionize into prosperity.

And yet

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34028087

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

#188

Post by gwright »

metadat wrote: post #133
gwright wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost as if TANSTAAFL.

First encounter with this initialism. TANSTAAFL / TINSTAAFL "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tanstaafl.asp Also, if I may add: I wish there were more substance in your comment. This non-sequitur was disappointing.

Yeah, there could have been a lot more substance but to be honest a disappointingly large number participants here don't seem to understand that very basic principle when they engage in discussions here.

To be clear, the parent to my comment seemed to completely understand TANSTAAFL. My comment was very obliquely directed at other participants in the larger conversation who seem to think that there is no legitimate reason for an employer to ever let a single employee go because any competent business will work like an oracle and make perfect business decisions always. Any unexpected outcome must be because they are greedy corporate monsters that don't care about their employees. (my apologies for the exaggeration but you should have seen what I wrote and deleted previously :-)

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

#189

Post by carabiner »

bencpeters wrote: post #46
discodave wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Amazon. Back in the day they managed to avoid 'layoffs' by transferring thousands of people from Fire Phone -> Alexa. They somehow avoided layoffs from shutting down Prime Air (drones, not 767s), even though that had a lot of employees. They're pretty good at getting people to leave without doing 'layoffs'. Heck, if you believe that they've always had 5-10% 'unregretted attrition' targets, which I do, and…

Prime Air is not shut down, we're working on it and expanding. Can't post too many details, but we are actively delivering to customers in test markets today. A publically released video from a few months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bDyeUiWL3M&ab_channel=amazo... Source: I'm an SDE at Prime Air.

Do you have a feel for if they might start hiring SDE's again before the end of the month? I was looking into them because it's right up my alley: I'm an aerospace engineer (aeronautics, flight test) turned software engineer who's worked a lot in rotorcraft.

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

#190

Post by [deleted] »

ptero wrote: post #73
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…

Being able to easily lay off employees means that the companies are much happier hiring, too. Most of those fired will likely land another job soon, precisely because their new employer does not have to treat their hiring as a multi-year commitment. Europe, which makes it very hard to let an employee go, tends to have significantly higher unemployment than the US, which is much more cavalier about layoffs. My 2c.

[deleted]
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