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Layoffs Don't Work

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Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#301

Post by biztos »

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 get the point, but I don't think that's universally true. Especially in the less glamorous corners of the tech industry -- yes, you have some younger people looking to bounce, but most of the people who actually keep the lights on have full lives outside of work and all things being equal, they'd rather stick around than deal with the hassle of finding a new job. They're only going to leave if you create a toxic work environment or underpay them by double-digit percentages.

For those industries, I don't think they're getting much from the layoffs besides the short-term "we did layoffs" C-suite bonus. If you're in the Widgetmaker Control Systems industry, why do you want to make your workforce think they have to leave in 3-4 years?

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#305

Post by slappyham »

mattmaroon wrote: post #59

"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." Do non-science journalists just not know about correlation vs causation? Does it really not occur to them that maybe the companies that didn't do layoffs were healthier and that's why they overperformed? Wouldn'…

[flagged]

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#306

Post by pixl97 »

sejje wrote: post #127
eschneider wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people will often see people who they don't perceive as low performers getting lumped in with 'low performers' and laid off. At that point, you start looking for management that seem to know what they're doing.

But only top 10% start looking? This all sounds like a hand wavy hypothetical.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_effect

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#307

Post by giantg2 »

momocowcow wrote: post #263
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have done probably 500 to 1000 tech screens for big tech companies (as the interviewer) and this is completely true. I have interviewed many people employed in tech as programmers for their entire career and they can't code. I don't meen leetcode, I mean they get confused trying to write brute force substring search. The nested for loop seems to be too complex for them to keep in their head all at once. I have had…

You are still not testing if they can code. But whether under the scrutiny of another person, they can code. Maybe this is important to you, maybe peer programming is important to you for example. I remember a young dev who couldn’t pass such tests, as he would get too nervous, yet he had written the core tech for many shipped products. The type of guy you would just stick in dark room. With age this type of stuff se…

I agree with both you and the parent to some degree. I have experienced interviews that went badly because they were in an IDE I wasn't familiar with, or in Leetcode (never used it). So I'm distracted by how to use the tool rather than how to code the solution. But I can also see how stuff like finding a substring is easy - most languages have a function for it. But at that point, you're testing different things - problem-solving vs rote memorization of a provided function.

I feel like a good middle is to allow Google for documentation searches, not solution searches. Without searching (or IDE with radix completion), I'd probably fail the test for not knowing the syntax off the top of my head.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#308

Post by insane_dreamer »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #200
WalterBright wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I have done probably 500 to 1000 tech screens for big tech companies (as the interviewer) and this is completely true. I have interviewed many people employed in tech as programmers for their entire career and they can't code. I don't meen leetcode, I mean they get confused trying to write brute force substring search. The nested for loop seems to be too complex for them to keep in their head all at once. I have had…

Knowing the right answer and knowing the right answer with a gun to your head are two different skills.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#309

Post by slappyham »

sleight42 wrote: post #69

The top comments read like HN of a decade or two ago when armchair exporting was rampant. Paraphrasing: "I, an engineer, am smarter than an economist therefore the article is wrong." Nothing of value to be found at the top of the comments.

Combine that with temporarily-embarrassed billionaires and it's a recipe for disaster. Every last asshole here is hoping for a fat exit for some ReactJS garbage that probably just grinds up poor people into McDonald's hamburger meat; of course they don't give a shit about actual workers with actual lives, whom layoffs predominantly hurt.

I've been laid off, eight months after a hiring blitz for the exact division I worked for. Now, I could've told them the acquisitions they did were stupid and that the products were never going to be profitable, but I don't live in Manhattan, so those decisions are above me. But that didn't stop them from juicing the stock price and ruining our lives anyway.

Fuck these companies. They could do better, and they choose not to. And every last sycophant here is complicit.

Re: Layoffs Don't Work

#310

Post by fifticon »

andrewlgood wrote: post #231
giantg2 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I understand the trade offs you mention. I do disagree with your assertion that “Life is much harder for some of us.” You have chosen a different payoff - your family, certainty of health insurance, etc. You get the benefits that children bring and the joy of being a parent. The “young, childless people” have made a different choice - more freedom in employment decisions but no joy from children. Everyone has their o…

your argument sounds like "some people choose to do the dishes, some of us choose to let other people do the dishes".

Some of the "free choices" you claim people can make, will only be possible if some other people don't make those same choices.

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