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Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

matduggan.com

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Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#91

Post by cuteboy19 »

brookst wrote: post #24
oconnore wrote: post #17

This is incredibly dumb. > The downsized companies, however, were outperformed consistently by the nondownsized ones during the initial two years following the downsizing. Can you think of any confounding factors in this analysis? How do you control for important factors like, say: whether the board is in enough financial trouble to downsize ?

What? Next you’re going to find fault in my analysis that proves CPR kills people, as evidenced by the number of people who die after receiving CPR compared to those who just have a normal day.

You have to prove that CPR works. The burden of proof is not on anyone to prove that CPR does not work. In that sense the idea that the difference becomes insignificant after just 3 years is quite damning

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#92

Post by tablespoon »

bena wrote: post #81
lapcat wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the layoffs... worked? How does that follow? The conclusion would be that both the companies and workers suffered unnecessarily for 2 years, with no long-term benefit afterward to the layoffs. In other words, you should just ride out the downtimes instead of panicking.

Companies typically don't layoff because they want to have a laugh. Companies layoff when they're in some sort of trouble. If you don't have the cash to support the staff, you can't will that into existence. So it follows that companies that laid people off struggled for a bit. Because they were already struggling. It's not an instant cure, or even a guaranteed one. It's a measure to spend less so you can ride out th…

> Companies layoff when they're in some sort of trouble. If you don't have the cash to support the staff, you can't will that into existence.

No, companies layoff when they want to spend less money paying people. Being "in some sort of trouble" is only one of many reasons why they may choose that course.

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#93

Post by Joeri »

oconnore wrote: post #17

This is incredibly dumb. > The downsized companies, however, were outperformed consistently by the nondownsized ones during the initial two years following the downsizing. Can you think of any confounding factors in this analysis? How do you control for important factors like, say: whether the board is in enough financial trouble to downsize ?

Has anyone here read the full paper and checked whether they controlled for this?

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#94

Post by geph2021 »

lapcat wrote: post #65
dtdimond wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Group 1: companies in a good enough financial situation to not need layoffs Group 2: companies in a dire financial situation requiring layoffs After 3 years, what group would you expect to perform better financially? And if we told you it was a tie, you might ask: what did group 2 to improve their situation? Layoffs? Ok, sounds like they worked.

> Group 1: companies in a good enough financial situation to not need layoffs Group 2: companies in a dire financial situation requiring layoffs None of the big tech companies are in a "dire" financial situation. Indeed, some of them have just announced modest revenue increases this week. Yet they still conducted big layoffs. Did they "need" to do it? (Note in contrast that Apple announced a significant revenue decre…

   Did they "need" to do it?
Yes, that's the question. GP's point is that the financial situation of the companies is a confounding factor, and unfortunately the analysis does not address this. The conclusion, "Layoffs don't work", does not seem to be supported by the data/analysis that was presented.

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#95

Post by Apocryphon »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #39
dougmwne wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Nearly everyone I know left college doe-eyed and ready to dedicate a piece of their soul to their shiny new job. Everyone learned otherwise one person at a time. Some worked for “we’re all a family” companies and were able to remain innocent ignorants till the day the axe fell.

> Absolutely. Nearly everyone I know left college doe-eyed and ready to dedicate a piece of their soul to their shiny new job When did you graduate college? In the social media era, the sentiment has been more about "fuck you, pay me" and "H.R. is not your friend" type ideology. This is especially true in recent years, where a lot of college graduates have been exposed to years of /r/antiwork in their daily Reddit br…

You being a person is not mutually exclusive with any of those other sentiments. They are able to coexist.

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#96

Post by UncleEntity »

> Imagine you had a dog…

I used to have a dog.

When I had to get rid of her I ended up in the VA mental health ward for ten days because I tried to shoot myself in the head, not completely because of the dog (becoming homeless helped a lot) but I’m pretty sure it was a significant contribution.

To top it off if you take “a dog” to the pound it’s free but if you take “your dog” down there it costs $80 so the poor little thing lost her name because I didn’t have $80 so she was “this dog wandering around the neighborhood I found”.

One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was get rid of that dog and I’ve done some pretty hard things in my life.

Tell me more about your coworkers being out of work for a couple months before finding that next job.

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#97

Post by ROTMetro »

cebert wrote: post #52
bradleyjg wrote: post #6

This place isn't your home, these people aren't your friends and your executive leadership would run you over with their cars if you stood between them and revenue growth. Your relationship to work changes forever. You will never again believe that you are "critical" to the company or that the company is interested in you as a person. This has always always been the case. Grow up.

If you think work and your coworkers are friends or family, you’re in for a world of hurt.

I've worked at two companies where people pooled vacation time for sick co-workers who had already been granted extended leave time by the company way past the company norm when they got cancer. If that is not an act of friendship what is it? I've worked on a team where we scheduled our production schedule and the company their release schedule for a year around making sure a co-worker could go back to their country of origin for a couple of months. This was neither a technically irreplicable nor senior individual but they were valued because they were part of our team. When I had kids my coworkers surprised me with a ton of baby clothes. Those people were definitely my friends and we definitely had each others backs. I've been to more work friend's weddings than any other weddings.

I burned out and crashed and burned, but it was more about me finding my self worth in work and the need to be superman and get that recognition and then later to keep funding a lifestyle that I again has substituted as my value and self worth.

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#98

Post by [deleted] »

cebert wrote: post #52
bradleyjg wrote: post #6

This place isn't your home, these people aren't your friends and your executive leadership would run you over with their cars if you stood between them and revenue growth. Your relationship to work changes forever. You will never again believe that you are "critical" to the company or that the company is interested in you as a person. This has always always been the case. Grow up.

If you think work and your coworkers are friends or family, you’re in for a world of hurt.

[deleted]

Re: Layoffs Are Cruel and Don't Work

#99

Post by s1artibartfast »

Joeri wrote: post #93
oconnore wrote: post #17

This is incredibly dumb. > The downsized companies, however, were outperformed consistently by the nondownsized ones during the initial two years following the downsizing. Can you think of any confounding factors in this analysis? How do you control for important factors like, say: whether the board is in enough financial trouble to downsize ?

Has anyone here read the full paper and checked whether they controlled for this?

Per the article, they just took the fortune 1,000 companies and look at the ones that laid off during the 2008 crash versus the ones that didn't.
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