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Layoffs Don't Work

thehustle.co

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Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#221

Post by ghaff »

encom wrote: post #162
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this happen. I worked at an extremely efficient company that had a great product. We got acquired, and within months, were part of the acquiring company's yearly mandatory layoffs. They fired a bunch of (apparently random) people to meet the quota. This absolutely destroyed us. Morale was just gone. Within six months, about a quarter of our employees, mainly top performers who could easily find other jobs,…

>yearly mandatory layoffs That sounds grotesque. Who would choose to work at a company with that sort of bullshit dangling over your head?

Tons of people have gone to work at companies with various stack ranking schemes. Most people need jobs.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#222

Post by sashank_1509 »

screye wrote: post #207
filoleg wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot speak for layoffs in all industries ever, but I agree with your assessment of layoffs in big tech from personal experiences. I have way too many “lifer” friends in big tech who are deadly scared of layoffs and job hopping. They are also the ones who rarely got promoted and havent had a significant pay bump pretty much ever. On another hand, half my team at a big tech company got laid off back at the start of…

Has to do with H1b visas. Post layoff, a person on H1B has 2 months to sign a new job offer or they must leave the country. Majority of Indian and Chinese H1bs do not have green cards, and are the main group that suffers. Some of these folks are well into their 30s, with kids and houses in the US.

I’m familiar with H1b visas. Yes it’s an irritating situation for an immigrant to be in but it’s not as bad as you make it out to be.

If you have good life savings, you can convert to tourist visa, and stay in the country for an additional 6 months and a higher hassle when restarting your career.

You can leave the country, and get back as long as your H1b is still valid.

If your spouse is working, you can be convert to being a dependent on them with H4 visas.

At the end of the day I think the government should not let people end up in such a situation. After the 6 year H1b deadline, I would prefer if the government just sends a notice to those that it thinks can immigrate long term and send the rest back. At least then we won’t have the ridiculous situation of upending families and children who have started schooling just because their parents lost a job.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#223

Post by ltbarcly3 »

tayo42 wrote: post #201
filoleg wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot speak for layoffs in all industries ever, but I agree with your assessment of layoffs in big tech from personal experiences. I have way too many “lifer” friends in big tech who are deadly scared of layoffs and job hopping. They are also the ones who rarely got promoted and havent had a significant pay bump pretty much ever. On another hand, half my team at a big tech company got laid off back at the start of…

I don't get how people get jobs so easily. It took me like 8 months and it was extremely stressful.

They have connections from previous jobs who will vouch for them.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#224

Post by visarga »

WalterBright wrote: post #188
lumost wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech interviews tend to be daunting. Many long term employees lose the skill, and fear the impact of work interruption on their resume as well as their ability to get in again. Anecdotally, the LC bar for many firms has risen to the point that passing requires at least one through of the question before. If you Time bound your practice per question to 20 minutes, this means that you can solve most LC problems at…

> I'm unclear what employers are deriving from this exercise at this point It filters out the complete frauds. Yes, there are people who know all the right things to say in a job interview, but cannot code at all. If you hire one of them, it takes a bit to find out they cannot code, and a bit longer to fire them, so you're out $$$$ paying their salaries for nothing. For example, a recruiter I know will ask a tech can…

> it takes a bit to find out they cannot code, and a bit longer to fire them, so you're out $$$$ paying their salaries for nothing

Not just that. They block the hiring process. Maybe there was just that one open position on your team, and that bad 3 month hire postponed a good hire by 6 months. It's also very incomfortable to fire and start again.

My interviews contain questions that are basic, and any new team mate should know. I keep asking them because 90% of the candidates actually can't answer them well. You should know what a "dot product" is if you want to work as a ML engineer, that kind of stuff. Or be able to open a text file and count word frequencies.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#225

Post by giantg2 »

filoleg wrote: post #160
Workaccount2 wrote: post #150

Real talk here, and I'm sorry for being "that guy" Why do tech workers get so wrapped around the axle of layoffs when most people are in a chronic state of tech job hopping? I know multiple people who have worked their entire career thus far without ever staying at a place for more than 3 or 4 years. Some no more than two. Tech job culture is practically a mono culture with "hop jobs" being a hallmark. From an employ…

I cannot speak for layoffs in all industries ever, but I agree with your assessment of layoffs in big tech from personal experiences. I have way too many “lifer” friends in big tech who are deadly scared of layoffs and job hopping. They are also the ones who rarely got promoted and havent had a significant pay bump pretty much ever. On another hand, half my team at a big tech company got laid off back at the start of…

Yeah, I make the same adjusted for inflation that I did when I got my last/only promotion 10 years ago. I have grey hair, a disability, and a family that relies on the health insurance. Switching or being laid off is a risky proposition for me. It sounds like all your examples are young, childless people (who else could take a month off to go vacationing?). Life is much harder for some of us.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#226

Post by ghaff »

sejje wrote: post #124
EPWN3D wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top performers have options and value stability. They also know that they rely on their manager to accurately reflect their work up the chain. Some percentage of top performers report to deadbeat managers, so in an environment doing mandatory layoffs, they'll know that it doesn't matter how much they knock it out of the park, their manager will screw them. So of course they'll leave.

If you're a top performer stuck under a deadbeat manager, how are you able to signal to new companies that you're a top performer? I read posts here all the time about how hard it is to hire. How do top performers distinguish themselves as they go out for new jobs? When did this become easy?

As others here are saying you know the right people. Which is probably a pretty unsatisfactory answer and seems very unfair for those who don't.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#227

Post by hinkley »

theli0nheart wrote: post #136
andrenotgiant wrote: post #44

> After the early-2000s dotcom bust, Bain researchers found that stock prices for S&P 500 companies that had no layoffs or laid off less than 3% of their workforce increased an average of 9% in the next year. Meanwhile, stock prices were flat in companies that laid off between 3%-10% of their workers, and prices plummeted 38% for companies that laid off more than 10%. Failing companies go through layoffs. Companies l…

The key takeaway for me is that layoffs are an effect, not a cause, of company failure. The quoted text is a good example of this. If a company is struggling strategically or economically, and doesn't do a layoff, it's just going to struggle more, and fail more quickly. Companies that aren't laying people off are likely not even considering layoffs, because their businesses are actually doing well. So, it's pretty ob…

Layoffs are an effect of unsustainable success.

If you can lay off people without cratering the company, it means you hired too many people in the first place.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#228

Post by ltbarcly3 »

no_wizard wrote: post #185
Workaccount2 wrote: post #150

Real talk here, and I'm sorry for being "that guy" Why do tech workers get so wrapped around the axle of layoffs when most people are in a chronic state of tech job hopping? I know multiple people who have worked their entire career thus far without ever staying at a place for more than 3 or 4 years. Some no more than two. Tech job culture is practically a mono culture with "hop jobs" being a hallmark. From an employ…

The tech industry also doesn’t reward loyalty, even at big tech. There’s a reason for the low tenure at most firms and it’s primarily due to the lack of rewarding experience and depth of field knowledge at most companies. When you have to get a new job just to get a salary increase that keeps up with inflation you are going to see a lot of job hopping when the skills of the workforce are generally in demand. How ofte…

Big tech employees have been abandoning companies the second they can get higher TC for decades, and as soon as the companies start firing a very small fraction (in a lot of cases people who were coasting or incompetent) its a problem of morality?

You can really see what people are made of when they face adversity. Good luck.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#229

Post by giantg2 »

"Kelleher wasn’t around to see them. He died in 2019."

That's how it works. You have someone who is a great leader who started a company and treated their employees well, then the behemoth corporation waits for them to die to start gutting their values. It happened at my company. It's basically just a lite version of a private equity takeover.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#230

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

no_wizard wrote: post #185
Workaccount2 wrote: post #150

Real talk here, and I'm sorry for being "that guy" Why do tech workers get so wrapped around the axle of layoffs when most people are in a chronic state of tech job hopping? I know multiple people who have worked their entire career thus far without ever staying at a place for more than 3 or 4 years. Some no more than two. Tech job culture is practically a mono culture with "hop jobs" being a hallmark. From an employ…

The tech industry also doesn’t reward loyalty, even at big tech. There’s a reason for the low tenure at most firms and it’s primarily due to the lack of rewarding experience and depth of field knowledge at most companies. When you have to get a new job just to get a salary increase that keeps up with inflation you are going to see a lot of job hopping when the skills of the workforce are generally in demand. How ofte…

Yeah I don't see the big mystery here. People leave to keep up with cost of living or get away from toxic elements in their current workplace that are otherwise difficult - if not impossible - to change by staying. It's not something we want to do, it's something we have to do for one good reason or another. If we had better rights and meaningful raises to improve or even sustain our quality of life, the job hopping would surely decrease. The layoffs and the reason for job hopping are both attributed to actions on the employer's side.
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