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Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

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Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#41

Post by hgsgm »

p0pcult wrote: post #33
shmatt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making profits does not have to mean funding teams that aren't generating anything significant in terms or product and/or income. Many of these companies have a small portion making most of the profits, and all the others eating them up (see: VR, Voice). You can do it the Amazon way, cutting products that are bleeding money, or the Salesforce way asking all units to cut 10% across the board, but just keeping failed p…

But keeping people employed because "we have money" is a really good reason.

Why Amazon and not investors? Investors can pay those people to do something more useful than Amazon's best ideas at the moment.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#42

Post by simplotek »

ben_w wrote: post #13
sidewndr46 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in line with the amount of turnover each year anyways due to "rank and yank" policies, be it official or just the implicit result of management's actions. The news industry is incredibly desperate for stories about layoffs it seems.

Humans are bad at big numbers. I wouldn't have guessed that was 1% of their workforce, nor the turnover rate. I would've guessed 150-200K, and 25%/year turnover. Even though this means more people. 18k still sounded huge until I wrote this comment.

> Even though this means more people. 18k still sounded huge until I wrote this comment.

18k is huge because Amazon has been killing off entire teams, managers and all, instead of doing the typical Jack Welch decimation tactics.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#43

Post by hgsgm »

deltree7 wrote: post #36
honestduane wrote: post #26

This is just corporate gaslighting at this point; There is no legitimate reason so many very profitable tech companies need to fire so many when we are not even in a recession according to the United States Government and the treasury and the banks, and its not like they are not making record profits. They cant say "we are making record profits" and in the same breath say "we need to fire people to survive" that's no…

This is a very naive take. When I invest in Amazon or any other company, I expect Amazon to invest in projects that give me a rate of return that exceeds the 4% that I can easily get from Treasury. If it can't, Amazon better return my money. Also, Amazon can't hoard employees that aren't being productive. It is better those employees work for startups and other endeavors. individually, it sucks short-time, but as a n…

> Also, Amazon can't hoard employees that aren't being productive.

They absolutely can, and this is a major FAANG recruiting strategy.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#44

Post by hgsgm »

capableweb wrote: post #20
chasd00 wrote: post #19

Why did so much tech go on a pandemic hiring spree? Did they think it was going to last forever? I don't understand all everyone ( in tech ) made the same mistake. "oh let's increase our headcount by 25% in response to a pandemic that is mutating and gradually lessoning in severity while vaccines and other medicines are dramatically increasing in efficacy... but it's going to last forever." what am i missing? How did…

What makes you think it was a mistake? Could very well have been planned. "Lets hire like crazy in order to meet demand, and when the demand disappears again, do layoffs". Probably someone calculated something somewhere saying "If we hire 25% more people to take advantage of the increased demand, we'll earn more profits even with layoffs with heavy severances for everyone after X months".

There was no demand, though, not for these roles.

These companies already know how to hire temp contractors, which is cheaper and cleaners than layoffs with severance.

The real answer is that they pretended the Covid money fountain wouldn't end.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#45

Post by newaccount2021 »

hgsgm wrote: post #43
deltree7 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very naive take. When I invest in Amazon or any other company, I expect Amazon to invest in projects that give me a rate of return that exceeds the 4% that I can easily get from Treasury. If it can't, Amazon better return my money. Also, Amazon can't hoard employees that aren't being productive. It is better those employees work for startups and other endeavors. individually, it sucks short-time, but as a n…

> Also, Amazon can't hoard employees that aren't being productive. They absolutely can, and this is a major FAANG recruiting strategy.

[dead]

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#46

Post by capableweb »

Retric wrote: post #39
capableweb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think it was a mistake? Could very well have been planned. "Lets hire like crazy in order to meet demand, and when the demand disappears again, do layoffs". Probably someone calculated something somewhere saying "If we hire 25% more people to take advantage of the increased demand, we'll earn more profits even with layoffs with heavy severances for everyone after X months".

Amazon is letting go 1% of it’s workforce, that’s hardly a 25% bump from COVID. It’s just normal restricting making headlines because of their size.

If such conversation occurred, it was probably worded way different than my quickly thrown together example, where the number was just something I pulled out of my ass, just like the imaginary conversation.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#47

Post by noodle »

shmatt wrote: post #31
honestduane wrote: post #26

This is just corporate gaslighting at this point; There is no legitimate reason so many very profitable tech companies need to fire so many when we are not even in a recession according to the United States Government and the treasury and the banks, and its not like they are not making record profits. They cant say "we are making record profits" and in the same breath say "we need to fire people to survive" that's no…

Making profits does not have to mean funding teams that aren't generating anything significant in terms or product and/or income. Many of these companies have a small portion making most of the profits, and all the others eating them up (see: VR, Voice). You can do it the Amazon way, cutting products that are bleeding money, or the Salesforce way asking all units to cut 10% across the board, but just keeping failed p…

If they were making record profits, they would be looking to expand their profitable divisions, would they not? They would likely not lay people off, but reorganize internally to move resources away from failing areas and into the clearly thriving, very profitable areas; or start something completely new.

Hiring one good employee is expensive and difficult.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#48

Post by whiplash451 »

hgsgm wrote: post #41
p0pcult wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But keeping people employed because "we have money" is a really good reason.

Why Amazon and not investors? Investors can pay those people to do something more useful than Amazon's best ideas at the moment.

That's a pretty inhuman way of thinking IMO. The moment a company hires people, the onus is on it to keep these people busy.

You don't "return" people like you return money.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#49

Post by mc32 »

honestduane wrote: post #26

This is just corporate gaslighting at this point; There is no legitimate reason so many very profitable tech companies need to fire so many when we are not even in a recession according to the United States Government and the treasury and the banks, and its not like they are not making record profits. They cant say "we are making record profits" and in the same breath say "we need to fire people to survive" that's no…

According to Joe Biden, we've been in a recession for two years. But even if he was imprecise as he is wont to be, the Fed is saying there is a slowdown. Companies are not going to wait till they are near bankruptcy to lay people off.

Yes, they overhired but also those people hired got experience and a job. They may have instead landed a different job paying less (otherwise they would not have taken this job) or they may have not landed any job at all if all companies decided not to add that 25% growth in headcount.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#50

Post by whiplash451 »

mathattack wrote: post #34
throwawayxy1 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would any company fire anybody if they are generating money for them?

They think these 18,000 aren’t helping making enough money to justify the costs.

There is an open window for tech companies to free-ride layoffs at the moment, that's what's happening. And they are taking this opportunity to its fullest.
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