441–450 of 622 posts
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Lowest unemployment rate in 50 years: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE
More people than ever worked two jobs last year: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02026631
There is no excuse. One way or the other it's really bad management. You may not realize it but 7% is a massive piece of the pie. Why did you hire those people Gitlab in the first place? The macroeconomic environment isn't tough, my equity stock and shares could have been better but are doing just fine. And if it were tough, it would justify layoffs of 1%, not 7%. Covid, the Russian war and energy crisis have been go…
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Record high credit card balances, record low personal savings, 40 year high inflation, rising interest rates and no sign of the fed stopping. Housing affordability at its lowest point since the real estate bubble and crash of 07/08. You are on some very good copium if you believe the economy is in good shape.
Right, this is the problem. The stock-market / macro-growth figures look good, but /personal/ finances and true cost-of-living look to be in trouble. If the "solution" is a bunch of layoffs, it's just going to compound the problem. The solution is all these companies that aren't actually dying need to raise wages to match all the recent inflation.
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It takes long time for the layoff effects to hit the company. The main effect is that you lose the trust of the top performers. These will be the in the lookout for new opportunities the day after the layoffs are done. If you cut 10%, expect 10% from the top to flee within a couple of years. The second effect is related to the fact that companies usually target older people with expensive jobs. In an a big org these…
I worked at a bigco that followed this approach. I think the alleged fungibility of programmers is surface-level. Sure - ~any decent programmer can jump into ~any codebase and do your JIRA tickets. But there's a more holistic ownership you miss out on that's going to be the difference between a system aging gracefully and a system becoming a giant hunk of butchered junk that's been one-small-jira-ticket-ed to death o…
How did this work? You got a raise after 10 years?
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I’m guessing you didn’t read the article because Avatar made in over 2 billion dollars, exceeding even their expectations, becoming the 6th highest grossing film of all time. Or maybe it bombed, beats me.
The quality of Pixar has certainly suffered - the movies have a “sequel direct to DVD” feel vs the amazing blockbuster of ancient days. But theater attendance is way down either way - and streaming make have cannibalized other revenue streams more than people think.
It's debatable whether these films feel like "sequel direct to DVD" or not, but I don't think it's debatable that audiences are watching them.
https://www.adweek.com/lostremote/nielsen-top-15-stranger-th...
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Disney is laying off 7k workers... >>> “While this is necessary to address the challenges we’re >>> facing today, I do not make this decision lightly,” said >>> CEO Bob Iger, " From the same article >>> ...the company released better than expected financial >>> results for the fourth quarter of 2022. Disney revenue in >>> the quarter rose 8% to $23.5 billion, edging past >>> estimates of $23.4 billion Truly they are…
But to be fair if a company can continue to operate or even grow while laying off employees, were these employees necessary in the first place ? I mean, should profit be given to employees, or owners ? Should company sacrifice their profit buffer to give it to employees they dont need ? Do they have a social responsibility to employees ? I m european so we see work in a way more controlled, mutualized way were compan…
You can drive a car a long way even if you never change the oil, but eventually it catches up with you. You can't conclude that an employee wasn't necessary if the company doesn't crash and burn soon after he was laid off. The negative consequences may not be manifested until years later.
> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…
> Inflation has been tame over the past six months. No, I don’t think so. 6.5% [0] is still an absurdly high rate compared to the past 30 years. It is nowhere near tame and may still fluctuate quite a bit. [0] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi
> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…
Investment, M&A and corporate spending activity has come to a near standstill in the past 6 months across multiple industries, as a result of the current economic uncertainty. Business loan default rates are expected to rise, there have already been increasing numbers of bankruptcies (e.g. Serta Mattresses, near default Bed Bath and Beyond, health care providers, etc). Not to mention the cascading bankruptcies of crypto schemes. The ramifications of permanent WFH have yet to cascade through the Commercial Real Estate sector - there are huge amounts of vacant office capacity that have yet to be written down, but we can expect to see sales of obsolete and aging office buildings at deep discounts. High interest rates also have an impact on the Residential Real Estate sector, with housing pricing declining, mortgage rates increasing, etc.
So 5-7% layoff is prudent for any large corporation in this economic environment, and layoffs / cost cuts have happened and will happen in many different industries, not just tech.
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Money doesn’t magically make burnout go away. In fact, it will make it worse, because you’ll keep telling yourself to hold on for the money while your mental health exponentially deteriorates.
Only things that ever gave me burnout were incompetent coworkers, and organizations that were doomed to fail.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in... https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/burnout-prevention...
> The current macroeconomic environment is tough No, it isn't, and it's embarrassing at this point to continue insisting this. The macroeconomic environment is good, particularly in the United States. Business investment is growing at 3% a quarter (annualized), which is better than the average over the past decade. Employment is growing rapidly. Inflation has been tame over the past six months. And wages are growing…