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Amazon cuts 16k jobs

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#71

I feel like this is the most natural layoff I've seen in twenty years (that is not the same as saying I feel good about it). Truly, most software companies need to cut their entire roster and re-draft quite frankly. You will need less people and have entirely new goals. This is beyond "economic" reality, AI has made it intuitive to restructure and reorient. Not doing so will just mean you will be blind-sided by any c…

This is where the Upton Sinclair quote comes in.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#72
post #35

I wonder what kind of unprecedented economic growth we'd be seeing right now if we kept with the status quo rather than imposing tariffs and scaring off foreign investors.

[flagged]

Since the administration have stopped releasing some data that usually is released, how fast would people be able to notice that the economy tanked, if it did?

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#73
post #35

I wonder what kind of unprecedented economic growth we'd be seeing right now if we kept with the status quo rather than imposing tariffs and scaring off foreign investors.

[flagged]

Sure, when the arbitrary tarriff formula was announced for every nation, the stock markets were down thousands, and the bond market was fluctuating. Then you had the short term trade war with China were both countries set tarrifs so high no imports/exports between the two happened for a month, and there was a concern about empty shelves in major department stores.

But as one Wall Street executive put it, "Trump also chickens out", so Wall Street learned he would backdown on any tariffs that had too much negative economic impact.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#74
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"ZIRP-era deadweight" that's 3-4 years ago now

You underestimate how sclerotic large corporations can be. I've seen people do zero work, quite visibly, at fortune 500s and not be fired for over a year.

> You underestimate how sclerotic large corporations can be. I've seen people do zero work (...)

This is the very first time I saw anyone with a straight face talking about Amazon workers and mentioning "people do zero work, quite visible".

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#75
post #35

I wonder what kind of unprecedented economic growth we'd be seeing right now if we kept with the status quo rather than imposing tariffs and scaring off foreign investors.

[flagged]

It's very very easy to make stocks go up. Zimbabwe and Venezuela have stock markets that have gone up millions of times over for instance. The stock market is mostly just an inverse of currency health and tends to be inline or slightly above inflation on average, even when the economy is a complete mess.

No one ever judges economic health by the stock market which you seem to be doing. You judge it be things like median wealth (currently below 2007 levels in the USA) and employment figures.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#76

>Amazon axes 16,000 American jobs as it ... relocates to a larger campus in India https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/10/amazon-to-invest-additiona...

I wonder how this is also related to the attacks on the H1B visa.

I'm not american, but it seems to me there are enough american job seekers in CS to justify not needing H1B.

I'm not sure anyway what is the relationship between the potential difficulty of hiring new folks, and firing current folks in USA to offshore roles, are relates.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#77

>Amazon axes 16,000 American jobs as it ... relocates to a larger campus in India https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/10/amazon-to-invest-additiona...

I wonder how this is also related to the attacks on the H1B visa.

Very related IMO. Even before Trump US workforce was expensive, now limit the influx of new workforce and hiring abroad looks like a logical decision

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#78

>Amazon axes 16,000 American jobs as it ... relocates to a larger campus in India https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/10/amazon-to-invest-additiona...

Once again the mask of "AI" is really just human labor underneath.

I've personally seen founders raise millions of dollars because of "AI" that is really just manual labor. I know, I wrote the code that enabled the manual laborers. This was like 10 years ago; the lie is even easier to tell now. And that is so so important in an economy where gaining favor from those who already have money is far better than just selling a good or service.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#79
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"ZIRP-era deadweight" that's 3-4 years ago now

You underestimate how sclerotic large corporations can be. I've seen people do zero work, quite visibly, at fortune 500s and not be fired for over a year.

There are people at my office who haven't really done anything since March 2020 when we all got sent home. They probably weren't doing anything before then either, but at least they were there eight hours a day.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#80
post #35

I wonder what kind of unprecedented economic growth we'd be seeing right now if we kept with the status quo rather than imposing tariffs and scaring off foreign investors.

[flagged]

AI investment/datacenter construction was roughly 1% of US GDP in 2025 all by itself.

That and people were expecting the tariffs to be consistently applied as stated, instead we got... this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr7OVWgqDIM&t=27s

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