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Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

bbc.com

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Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#141

Post by llmslave »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #75
marcusb wrote: post #12

Once a company moves on to recurring, large-scale layoffs justified by vague corporate Mumbo-Jumbo, I think it is safe to assume it is a "day 2" company.

I'm not really sure how this fits with Amazon's corporate culture. I thought all of the dead wood good pip'ed out of there on an ongoing basis. If people are surviving that then who are are the people being ejected? Unprofitable areas or new products which didn't pan out?

there are alot of tenured people that are good at politics, but dont provide much actual value

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#142

Post by UncleMeat »

joshuacc wrote: post #117
stego-tech wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Companies will always min/max a system so they retain as much money as possible for as few hands as they can manage, always funneled upwards to executives and shareholders. Rather than trying to “negotiate” with these entities, regulations should be wielded to stop min-maxing beyond a certain point or in bad faith, and firing people while turning a profit is 100% bad faith that should be regulated or barred.

“firing people while turning a profit is 100% bad faith that should be regulated or barred.” That’s far too broad a claim. Just because you’re turning a profit doesn’t mean you should be locked into keeping all of your employees. Some are likely to be underperformers who don’t bring sufficient ROI compared to other investments/hires you could make.

My experience with these sorts of layoffs is that they are not tightly bound to performance. If you have underperformers you can fire them the ordinary way.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#144

Post by ericmay »

martin-t wrote: post #96
stego-tech wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Companies will always min/max a system so they retain as much money as possible for as few hands as they can manage, always funneled upwards to executives and shareholders. Rather than trying to “negotiate” with these entities, regulations should be wielded to stop min-maxing beyond a certain point or in bad faith, and firing people while turning a profit is 100% bad faith that should be regulated or barred.

Behavior is shaped by incentives. Countries used to be overwhelmingly autocratic - often ruled by hereditary dictators called kings. People realized unchecked power will always lead to abuse and overthrew them. Companies are overwhelmingly autocratic (cooperatives being exceedingly rare to the point most people don't know about their existence) - often rules by hereditary dictators called owners. But you can't legall…

The US kind of does in that at least in spirit if the government violates the constitution we have this 2nd Amendment and plenty of moral precedent from the founders. It’s in the Declaration of Independence too which, in my view, is just the first page of the Constitution. The 0th Amendment if you will.

Related to your second point about autocracy - I mean the good thing is you can, today, go start a company with the exact governance structure you propose and go compete in the market.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#145

Post by anonymous_sorry »

phoe-krk wrote: post #4

These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". They aren't unfortunate accidents of external origin that happened to them, they are conscious internal decisions to let people go.

There's an interesting asymmetry in language in this area.

Jobs are "created" by a company or an industry.

But they never seem to be "destroyed", instead they are "lost".

If the company starts hiring again, they're "creating" new jobs, not "finding" the ones they were careless enough to lose.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#146

Post by jalapenos »

mrtksn wrote: post #138
seydor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a difference?

It’s like a rocket flew into the refugee camp vs the occupation forces struck the refugee camp with a rocket.

My favourite is during terrorist attacks in Europe, it's always like "car attacks crowd". Like the car's wife had left it and it had decided to go out with a bang.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#147

Post by nQQKTz7dm27oZ »

raziel2p wrote: post #10

> The company has more than 1.5 million employees across its warehouses and offices worldwide. > This includes around 350,000 corporate workers, which include those in executive, managerial and sales roles, according to figures that Amazon submitted to the US government last year. So roughly 4% of jobs in Amazon's corporate division disappeared. Not to downplay that the world/economy is in a bad state, but I don't th…

[dead]

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#148

Post by tirant »

martin-t wrote: post #44
phoe-krk wrote: post #4

These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". They aren't unfortunate accidents of external origin that happened to them, they are conscious internal decisions to let people go.

It's wild that you can legally work for a company, spend your limited life's time to build a part of it while not owning even a tiny bit of it (getting paid for unit of time - a finite resource) and then just get fired once you are not longer useful and that's the end of your income from the thing you built for you. All the while people who own it don't have to perform any kind of work and keep getting paid in perpet…

The same can be said in the relationship of the company towards the employee. Any employee can leave any moment they want and all the investments the company has done on them will be lost.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#149

Post by mrtksn »

jalapenos wrote: post #146
mrtksn wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like a rocket flew into the refugee camp vs the occupation forces struck the refugee camp with a rocket.

My favourite is during terrorist attacks in Europe, it's always like "car attacks crowd". Like the car's wife had left it and it had decided to go out with a bang.

Damn cars why do they do that! Ironically soon cars may start actually doing it.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#150

Post by ericmay »

markus_zhang wrote: post #71
actionfromafar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like a merger of Capital and State.

It has been and it is. Both US and China have successfully created a Leviathan albeit if different form. EU is way behind and that’s why it’s losing.

The EU did it too, probably second with the US being last. It’s just that the EU focused on worker’s rights, protections for origins of products (can’t call bubbly wine Champaign if it’s not from there), etc.
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