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Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?

economist.com

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Re: Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?

#61

Post by SllX »

rbranson wrote: post #38
SllX wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true and I’m not here to disagree, but what the parent pointed out raised a question for me: weren’t these salary increases in part due to the fact that since the 2008 Financial crisis, money has been cheap, and now with the Feds raising rates, money is now more expensive? And if so, and those salaries were not sustainable because the profits that allowed for them hypothetically cannot be sustained because pe…

More important than LIRP influence is that Bay Area tech companies were incredibly successful in the decade at increasing revenues, so they could afford to pay more. Apple: $65.2B in 2010 vs $260B in 2019 Facebook: $1.97B in 2010 vs $70.9B in 2019 Netflix: $1.67B in 2010 vs $20B in 2019 Google: $29.3B in 2010 vs $160B in 2019

You make an excellent point and I had to sit down and think about this more holistically because I’m just trying to understand what is going on in the economy right now and using this comment chain as a lens to try and do it in. So what I came up with is that is true but more context is necessary I think: payroll isn’t the only cost they increased. M&A was also huge this past decade: Apple bought Beats for $3B, Intel’s modem business for $1B and between 2010 and 2022 they had at least 14 other acquisitions for >$100M and this is excluding the financing and equipment purchases for their suppliers including TSMC and that weird deal they had with the PRC to invest $275B into mainland China.

Facebook’s 4 largest purchases in the last decade were WhatsApp for $19B, Oculus VR for $2B, Instagram for $1B and Kustomer for $1B along with at least 5 other acquisitions for >$100M.

I don’t want to go down the whole list in detail, but Google has invested heavily into YouTube, Waymo and other bets this past decade and Netflix was up until very recently just pouring money into Hollywood and other media markets like Japan to acquire production and/or distribution rights and built up pretty much their entire streaming infrastructure in the post-2008 world. All of this was an also financed with cheap money and these investments allowed them to grow their revenue, maybe some more successfully than others.

None of that is really artificial inflation, but I guess this is why dollar inflation is called inflation?

Re: Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?

#62

Post by karmakurtisaani »

notac wrote: post #45
techperson20007 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to hear this and good luck in the search. Out of curiosity, at age 50, wondering why you wouldn't have a substantial savings by this age, enough to avoid losing housing? Or are you simply living with your mom to reduce the impact on that savings? Sorry if i'm making it sound like everyone at 50 should have a ton of money, I know thats not the case. Just curious.

Honestly I'm sick of seeing people post this kind of thing. There's _all kinds_ of reasons people can not have the "expected" amount of savings at _any_ age. Medical. Divorce. Other life disasters. Failed investments. Business failure. These kinds of questions frankly just lead to victim blaming and expose the asker as either (a) having grown up wealthy and staying that way their entire life, or (b) completely callou…

Well, I for one would be interested in hearing those reasons. If for nothing else, to learn from their story.

Re: Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?

#63

Post by jcadam »

dgs_sgd wrote: post #15
jebarker wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: how is the Bay Area housing market artificially inflated? I assumed the high prices were the normal market response to high demand from many people with deep pockets.

artificially inflated in the sense that if it wasn’t for government regulation that makes building difficult, then the normal market forces that incentivize builders to meet demand would result in costs lower than they are now.

Instead you have million dollar hovels surrounded by $20 tents.

Re: Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?

#64

Post by mquirion »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #62
notac wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'm sick of seeing people post this kind of thing. There's _all kinds_ of reasons people can not have the "expected" amount of savings at _any_ age. Medical. Divorce. Other life disasters. Failed investments. Business failure. These kinds of questions frankly just lead to victim blaming and expose the asker as either (a) having grown up wealthy and staying that way their entire life, or (b) completely callou…

Well, I for one would be interested in hearing those reasons. If for nothing else, to learn from their story.

Not OP, but reasons that are pretty easy to imagine: - Living in America and suffering from either cancer, heart disease, or any chronic illness. - Have any number of children and not having a family member available to care for them before they are of school age and after school from Kindergarten until whatever local laws permit for the child to be home alone for a few hours a day. - Buying a home at the wrong time and taking an absolute bath on the "investment" once some unforseen circumstance forces you to sell the home while upside down on the mortgage. - Experiencing various forms of fraud. - Experiencing a lawsuit in America, whether you came out as the winner of said dispute or not. - Being 50 and having had the poor but not unreasonable "luck" of having worked for the wrong start-ups in 1999, 2007, and 2022.

Those are just top of mind.

Re: Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?

#65

Post by rhelz »

techperson20007 wrote: post #41
shams93 wrote: post #18

Being laid off at 50 is fairly brutal but hoping to find something using my django experience and get back to work. Fortunately my mom is still alive I had to move in with her, I had already been laid off once, when you are laid off 2 times in one year they force you to go 6 months with no income whatsoever as a form of punishment.

Sorry to hear this and good luck in the search. Out of curiosity, at age 50, wondering why you wouldn't have a substantial savings by this age, enough to avoid losing housing? Or are you simply living with your mom to reduce the impact on that savings? Sorry if i'm making it sound like everyone at 50 should have a ton of money, I know thats not the case. Just curious.

No matter how wealthy you are on paper, your spend should be less than your income. That means swallowing your pride and moving back home sometimes.

Re: Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?

#66

Post by notac »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #62
notac wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'm sick of seeing people post this kind of thing. There's _all kinds_ of reasons people can not have the "expected" amount of savings at _any_ age. Medical. Divorce. Other life disasters. Failed investments. Business failure. These kinds of questions frankly just lead to victim blaming and expose the asker as either (a) having grown up wealthy and staying that way their entire life, or (b) completely callou…

Well, I for one would be interested in hearing those reasons. If for nothing else, to learn from their story.

The point is, it's nobody's business why. The reasons are probably personal. Even asking opens a form of blame-game dialogue instead of beneficial and productive conversation.

Re: Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?

#67

Post by pakitan »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #53
indigodaddy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give it the URL, or do you need to provide the full body text for it to summarize?

Yes, just ask it to summarize the article and provide it with the link. I just did, here is the output: ------------------ "The article explores the job market for tech workers who have been laid off from their previous jobs due to the pandemic. Despite the high demand for tech talent, many of these workers have struggled to find new employment, and the article highlights several factors that may be contributing to t…

That's actually quite a bad summary with some hallucinations included (tourism, hospitality, AI screened resumes, focus on the pandemic). The summary I got was after I copy/pasted the contents and it's pretty much on the mark. Not sure why there is such a difference:

------------------------------------

Big tech companies like Meta and Amazon have announced massive layoffs, with American tech firms having announced 118,000 sackings so far this year. However, techies have been mostly spared, and the axe has fallen mainly on business functions like sales and recruitment. These functions had grown steadily as a share of tech-industry employment in recent years, a sign of bloat. The recent layoffs may release talented tech workers back into the job market, which could benefit other sectors struggling with digital reinvention, such as industrial goods, carmakers, banks, health insurers, and retailers. Some of the laid-off techies are also helping fuel a new generation of startups.

Re: Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?

#68

Post by nebulousthree »

notac wrote: post #45
techperson20007 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to hear this and good luck in the search. Out of curiosity, at age 50, wondering why you wouldn't have a substantial savings by this age, enough to avoid losing housing? Or are you simply living with your mom to reduce the impact on that savings? Sorry if i'm making it sound like everyone at 50 should have a ton of money, I know thats not the case. Just curious.

Honestly I'm sick of seeing people post this kind of thing. There's _all kinds_ of reasons people can not have the "expected" amount of savings at _any_ age. Medical. Divorce. Other life disasters. Failed investments. Business failure. These kinds of questions frankly just lead to victim blaming and expose the asker as either (a) having grown up wealthy and staying that way their entire life, or (b) completely callou…

Dont forget: all your successes, and all your failures are the result of your actions and your actions only. You exist in a vacuum.

Re: Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?

#69

Post by ElevenLathe »

horsawlarway wrote: post #55
t-3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, new housing is not being approved for construction mainly because the local gov is full of people who own real estate. In a natural situation, supply would be increased to meet demand.

But this is not artificial. This is a result of the fact that some resources do not have infinite space to increase supply. Land is one of those resources. No matter how much someone demands it, we cannot simply wish more land into existence in SF. So while we can increase housing supply by optimizing the usage of that land (more houses per unit area), this has adverse consequences for the people already using it...

> So while we can increase housing supply by optimizing the usage of that land (more houses per unit area), this has adverse consequences for the people already using it...

It would certainly have some kind of consequences for the people currently using it. Whether they would be better or worse that the consequences already being experienced is a matter for debate. I don't live in the bay area but would assume more density would largely be a good thing for regular people -- either their rent will drop because the market isn't so tight, or the home they own would rocket in value because it can suddenly be cleared to make way for an apartment or condo building (that they might have a hope of affording a unit in).

There are other people "using" the land though: the rentiers who run the local (and state, and national) government.

Re: Where have all the sacked tech workers gone?

#70

Post by Apocryphon »

rbranson wrote: post #38
SllX wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true and I’m not here to disagree, but what the parent pointed out raised a question for me: weren’t these salary increases in part due to the fact that since the 2008 Financial crisis, money has been cheap, and now with the Feds raising rates, money is now more expensive? And if so, and those salaries were not sustainable because the profits that allowed for them hypothetically cannot be sustained because pe…

More important than LIRP influence is that Bay Area tech companies were incredibly successful in the decade at increasing revenues, so they could afford to pay more. Apple: $65.2B in 2010 vs $260B in 2019 Facebook: $1.97B in 2010 vs $70.9B in 2019 Netflix: $1.67B in 2010 vs $20B in 2019 Google: $29.3B in 2010 vs $160B in 2019

What about all of the startups whose profits are over the horizon?
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