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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

#381

Post by asdff »

pessimizer wrote: post #238
asdff wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

More like losing weight and claiming that it's become easier to walk.

People are acting like workers are belly fat, I see them as bone and muscle and organs. A business cannot generate a profit without its workers performing profitable work. If the workers aren't doing something profitable, look at your managers dictating that work, not the labor that is along for the ride.

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

#382

Post by asdff »

gwright wrote: post #103
asdff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how its rational unless you assume staff have negative value. They don't, they have positive value, nothing gets done without staff. More staff means you output more work and make more money. Staff should be the last thing to cut.

That isn't the way a business works. There is no intrinsic value to "staff", positive or negative. The value comes from the way staff (or any other resources) is utilized. Building twice as many widgets by building and staffing a second factory could have a huge negative value if there is no demand for twice as many widgets in the market, for example.

So then the solution is to not fire people, but manage them better on something more profitable. What makes you more money in this pet example you've set up: having 1 widget factory, or two factories producing different widgets that are both in demand? The latter, obviously, or else amazon would still be entirely in the business of selling books today.

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

#383

Post by midoridensha »

alephnerd wrote: post #373
midoridensha wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The things you complain about do not equate to a "hostile immigration policy that is against permanency". SWE wages are lower than the US, yes, but not Europe in my experience. Japanese fluency is not needed for PR or even citizenship (you do need a little ability for naturalization). You don't need to be fluent to live in Japan; most of the expats I know are not fluent at all. German is also a very difficult languag…

I'll copy an earlier comment I made on a separate thread specifically with South Asia in mind, but I've seen similar dynamics in ASEAN as well. Also, I think you are an L1 Japanese speaker. If you're L1 is Indo-European, other Indo-European languages tend to be easier to learn. Why go to Japan (in reality only Tokyo) where median software TC is around $60k [0] when you can go to Canada where median software TC is aro…

I don't see a huge difference between $60k and $77k for instance, and it all depends on your actual job offers.

Regardless, while I don't disagree with your facts, the original claim (not by you) was that Japan had a "hostile immigration policy that is against permanency". This is false, and sounds like a lie in fact, unless the OP just woke up from cryo-sleep after being frozen in 1985. Sure, there are real challenges to working and living in Japan if you're a native English speaker (which I am), but my whole point here is that legally, immigration here is actually very easy, contrary to the anti-Japan posts like the OP's that I frequently see on forums like this one. Immigration policy here is far, far more inviting than the US which claims to be open to immigration, yet has severe limits on visas and green cards and is legally extremely difficult and expensive to emigrate to.

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

#384

Post by asdff »

WalterBright wrote: post #105
asdff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how its rational unless you assume staff have negative value. They don't, they have positive value, nothing gets done without staff. More staff means you output more work and make more money. Staff should be the last thing to cut.

If staff produces less value than they cost, then they get cut.

Why not come up with better projects for said staff that help the company? Why should they suffer from being mismanaged?

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

#385

Post by asdff »

lcw wrote: post #94
asdff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how its rational unless you assume staff have negative value. They don't, they have positive value, nothing gets done without staff. More staff means you output more work and make more money. Staff should be the last thing to cut.

Staff has negative value when demand growth doesn't meet a companies forecasts. You are right there should always be positive output from staff, but it doesn't mean that there is a demand for said output. I think when you say value you aren't speaking fiscally. If that's the case then I would say I'm not trying to minimize the output of workers being laid off. I'm just saying that the value of their output isn't mark…

If the value of their output isn't marketable, put them on a project that is. Having the workers suffer from their manager's decision makings for these divisions is cold and cruel.

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

#386

Post by carabiner »

bencpeters wrote: post #355
carabiner wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't, unfortunately, that's above my paygrade ;-). It's likely going to be a function of the larger hiring situation at Amazon (we're currently in a corporate hiring freeze), rather than something Prime Air specific. Sounds like you've got a perfect background for Prime Air though! Hopefully we'll be hiring again sometime this year - feel free to reach out (email in profile) if you want to chat more about it.

Thanks man, will reach out. Good luck on the program.

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

#387

Post by gls2ro »

SoftTalker wrote: post #325
i_have_an_idea wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> People are tired of job hopping to get market pay, dealing with bulls*t, and being thrown under the bus at the slightest hint of an economic downturn. So it's cool for employees to quit and job hop to get better pay, leaving their former employers with the effort and expense of replacing them, but not cool for companies to lay off employees to save money when markets contract?

yes, it is cool for employees to do so because of balance of power.

Companies have more power than employees when thinking about the size of the event:

they can fire you unexpectedly (with/without severance) so for your life (and probably your family) this is the main event happening.

But if you leave for a company that is usually a minor event that will probably not have any effect (or very limited) on their "life" (income/profit/culture ...)

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

#388

Post by capitalsigma »

rob74 wrote: post #364
shigawire wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some companies operate differently too. Obviously they still watch the bottom line, but some aren't as reactionary and are willing to take more pain to keep employees because they understand the value of that goodwill. More commonly private companies with a strong-willed founder/leader.

I don't even think "pain to keep employees" is the right word here - Amazon for instance is still highly profitable, it's just that the profits went down a bit (which is to be expected if the economy is worse). But they're still laying off people just to make the bottom line look even better...

Believe it or not, Amazon is not a charity. I don't know why you expect them to hold on to employees who are evidently a loss to their bottom line.

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

#389

Post by spoils19 »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #369
agentultra wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How excellent do you want to be at generic enterprise CRUD apps? Somebody has to build and maintain them. Have you considered that maybe they’re fine with their level of responsibility and can leave work at the office?

That is usually the part where I shake their hands and wish them luck in their next endeavor. If they are not there because they love working with technology, there are other places for them to be.

Agreed. I personally have seen divorces and breakdowns of entire families and friend groups of my colleagues, but what is most important is making sure that they stay up-to-date with the latest technologies and look to further improve themselves for the company.

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

#390

Post by nervlord »

slantedview wrote: post #254
dkrich wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s unusual about this cycle though is that it’s the fear of a recession due to fed policy that is causing companies to cut back. In past cycles fed policy caused a recession nobody predicted and companies suddenly found their earnings in the toilet and made enormous cuts in head count, R&D spending, etc. Something about this cycle and these cuts feels I dunno, manufacturered or something. Like are 7k high paying…

> Something about this cycle and these cuts feels I dunno, manufactured or something. It's absolutely manufactured to the extent that the Fed is intentionally trying to slow demand (aka: cause a recession) in order to stop inflation. The problem is, a large portion of inflation (some indicators are half) is simple price gouging, which Fed measures won't impact, and another large portion is simple ongoing supply chain…

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