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Amazon cuts 16k jobs

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#851

Post by danans »

pm90 wrote: post #681
kburman wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the fear, but look at it from the investor's perspective. The US market is tapped out, Amazon is already everywhere it can be. Amazon isn't expanding in India out of love for the country or a desire to see it grow. They are doing it because Wall Street demands infinite growth every single year. Amazon India went from zero to a market leader in a decade not because of charity, but because that is where the new m…

They can capture the market without moving the workforce there. Meta/Instagram/WA have dominated Indian market for a decade now. It seems like this is pure labor arbitrage. Growth is gone so the only way to increase profits is by cutting costs, with labor force being the top line item.

> They can capture the market without moving the workforce there. Meta/Instagram/WA have dominated Indian market for a decade now.

The former is a logistics company. They need an on-the-ground workforce in places they operate. The latter are social media products, no local workforce of significance needed.

That said, we are in a world where Amazon is able to do labor arbitrage of software-adjacent jobs by moving them to India. That's been happening for more than 2 decades. Nothing short of new laws levying penalties, or a massive consumer boycott will stop that or slow it down.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#852

Post by betty_staples »

irishcoffee wrote: post #514
repstosb wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And citizens benefit from the taxes paid by non-citizen immigrants, whether documented or undocumented. Not just income and payroll taxes that might be dodged by under-the-table arrangements, but sales taxes, property taxes (perhaps paid indirectly via rent to a taxpaying landlord), the consumer share (nearly 100%) of tariffs, etc. And much of that tax base is spent on benefits and services that are not accessible to…

Sales tax is actually paid by the vendor, they just pass the cost along. The landlord pays the property tax, they just pass the cost along. It is absolutely impossible for an undocumented alien to meaningfully contribute towards their tax burden in any meaningful way.

[dead]

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#853

Post by marcosdumay »

didibus wrote: post #345
rich_sasha wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US real GDP is racing ahead: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1 . Inflation is fine, even if you don't fully believe the official numbers: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA . Unemployment is increasing but below long term mean: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE . Interest rates are at a reasonably business-friendly level. This is all the USofA. Elsewhere, China is allegedly also printing…

> So if you'd claim it's terrible, there's some explaining to do Here's the explaining: - Unemployment has increased. - Long-Term unemployment has increased. - Number of gig workers is at an all time high. - Layoffs have continued. - Personal household dept is at an all time high. - Polls show most people have financial anxiety and feel squeezed. - Inflation is not under control. - Buy now pay later usage is up as mu…

Yep. It's the "K" shaped economy making your numbers and the GPs real at the same time.

(Well, at least the GPs 1st number. The 2nd ends in 2024, and the 3rd has questionable precision after September.)

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#854

Post by WalterBright »

1shooner wrote: post #839
WalterBright wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The printing press also led to books changing from being something only rich people had to everyone having books. This also enabled the industrial revolution, as books made literacy worth having, newspapers, and became a great storehouse of knowledge. I.e. it created far, far more jobs than it destroyed.

I have not heard even the most enthusiastic AI booster describe net job creation as a possible outcome. If you have any details on that prediction, I'd be interested to hear what they are.

Nobody remotely believed what the printing press invention would lead to.

After all, Gutenberg had only a modest goal of printing and selling indulgences. He didn't understand what the printing press was good for, either.

Pretty much all the jobs today did not exist before the printing press that enabled them.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#855

Post by davidgay »

rich_sasha wrote: post #407
didibus wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if you'd claim it's terrible, there's some explaining to do Here's the explaining: - Unemployment has increased. - Long-Term unemployment has increased. - Number of gig workers is at an all time high. - Layoffs have continued. - Personal household dept is at an all time high. - Polls show most people have financial anxiety and feel squeezed. - Inflation is not under control. - Buy now pay later usage is up as mu…

I'd say these are symptoms (and I'm not denying them) rather than causes. My point is that it's hard to find hard data that would say the economy is doing poorly. Even unemployment, which is your top line, seems... fine? I just don't understand where the squeeze is coming from. Either companies figured out how to do more with less people, or they started the cycle with too many people, or they don't know what they ar…

> Even unemployment, which is your top line, seems... fine?

The unemployment one is interesting because if you look at that graph, the universal pre-2022 pattern is basically a spike of unemployment during recessions followed by a gradual drop.

The recent pattern is a gradual increase.

I'm not a big fan of "numerical only / shape of graphs" analyses, but this does seem strange. Of course, the 2020 Covid spike is also unusual, so...

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#856

Post by spiritplumber »

nmfisher wrote: post #740
Aurornis wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He told me that he had worked to develop a tool that would replace effectively all of the middle management function that he was responsible for: gathering information from folks below him, distilling it down and reporting that to people above him. Any manager whose job was this simple was on borrowed time anyway. I think the person was feeding you a story around the campfire to impress you. Real management work do…

> Real management work doesn't operate like this. Don't know about Amazon but my experience with middle management is that it's exactly like that.

Also, if you bite them after telling them five times "please don't touch me", it's somehow your fault.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#857

Post by spiritplumber »

varispeed wrote: post #357
shartshooter wrote: post #144

This summer I went camping and at the campground next to me was a middle manager at Amazon. I’ve been out of the workforce for about a year, so I asked him how much of an impact AI was having in his role. He told me that he had worked to develop a tool that would replace effectively all of the middle management function that he was responsible for: gathering information from folks below him, distilling it down and re…

> gathering information from folks below him I thought that information is only available through organic conversations by the watercooler and cross polination of teams. Does it mean you no longer will have to come to office as long as you talk to AI over Slack? Or are they going to slap laptop on a Roomba and still mandate office attendance?

Let's split the difference and put a brain on a Roomba like in Fallout.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#858

Post by khazhoux »

Aurornis wrote: post #493
shartshooter wrote: post #144

This summer I went camping and at the campground next to me was a middle manager at Amazon. I’ve been out of the workforce for about a year, so I asked him how much of an impact AI was having in his role. He told me that he had worked to develop a tool that would replace effectively all of the middle management function that he was responsible for: gathering information from folks below him, distilling it down and re…

> He told me that he had worked to develop a tool that would replace effectively all of the middle management function that he was responsible for: gathering information from folks below him, distilling it down and reporting that to people above him. Any manager whose job was this simple was on borrowed time anyway. I think the person was feeding you a story around the campfire to impress you. Real management work do…

> I think the person was feeding you a story around the campfire to impress you.

Yeah, this sounds like the guy was just exaggerating for effect. Haven't we all joked before, "I'm writing a tool to automate my own job away."

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#859

Post by khazhoux »

hyperbovine wrote: post #716
tills13 wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the U.S. right now, experience isn’t an asset, it’s a liability this is a HUGE red flag for this comment being written be AI. Before 2025, nobody talked like this.

Uhm, plenty of phrases like this existed before 12 months ago.

Apparently, before ChatGPT, the english was devoid of any occurrence of "It's not X, it's Y"!

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#860

Post by ethbr1 »

hattmall wrote: post #832
booleandilemma wrote: post #784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I've worked at companies where management is exactly like this. Literally just status updates and asking when things are going to be finished. I have no respect for middle managers whatsoever. These people are a parasite on the industry.

Ok, Ok, I get the disdain for middle management. It's basically exactly like you described, but middle management didn't come about for no reason. There really is a value and the idea of automating it away with AI is extremely dubious. One could even argue that middle management is THE most critical role in corporations over a certain size. In that it is the glue that allows them to get to that size. But it's also wh…

Well said! I'd also add that a critical function of middle management in healthy companies is bidirectional information communication: sharing what their teams are doing up and sharing leadership priorities down.

Having worked at some dysfunctional companies where that didn't happen (and a few companies that were amazing at it), it makes a difference at scale.

Nothing is more disheartening than working your ass off as an IC, shipping, then finding out that your VP pivoted approach and your project won't be used.

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