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Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#161

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

jnsie wrote: post #111
losteric wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does usage of the devices lead to increased sales on Amazon.com? Are those sales that wouldn't have taken place on the app/website otherwise? That seems reasonable. Customers can order directly through the device ("Alexa, order some toilet paper"), that's low friction and lets Amazon rank options to their benefit. Plus regularly using Alexa keeps Amazon primed (no pun intended) in the customer's mind so next time t…

> at this point no one in my technical circle has proprietary "smart" home automation devices anymore What are they using now, if you don't mind me asking?

Home Assistant for home automation, Mycroft for voice control.

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#162

Post by ramraj07 »

lbriner wrote: post #140

This is so completely normal in these industries that it is a non-headline. Companies that have so much cash they can employ 100K+ developers on top of goodness knows how many designers, PMs, POs etc. of course they hire and fire. They can afford to offer above-average conditions when the markets need it and everyone goes flocking there only to be surprised when their job is taken away at the next point the sharehold…

Which American company employs 100k+ DEVRLOPERS?

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#163

Post by serjester »

zackmorris wrote: post #119

Something I've never understood about layoffs is that large corporations have nearly unlimited borrowing power. Amazon's market cap is just over $1 trillion, so it could probably borrow up to ~10x or $10 trillion against that (almost half the US GDP). Isn't that enough money to keep employees through a downturn? The flip side is that individuals have almost no borrowing power. The bottom 40% of the US population has…

If my business is valued at a million dollars and I take out a loan for a million, my business is now valued at 0. That’s basic accounting. Amazon had a net income of 14B last year - no one will let them borrow anything close to their market cap, much less 10X it.

Edit: This assumes I spend my loan on payroll which is what the OP originally suggested.

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#164

Post by flashgordon »

z3rgl1ng wrote: post #147
zackmorris wrote: post #119

Something I've never understood about layoffs is that large corporations have nearly unlimited borrowing power. Amazon's market cap is just over $1 trillion, so it could probably borrow up to ~10x or $10 trillion against that (almost half the US GDP). Isn't that enough money to keep employees through a downturn? The flip side is that individuals have almost no borrowing power. The bottom 40% of the US population has…

My pet theory is this boils down to investor confidence. Executives get more comp in stock, cutting workers sends the right signal.

This exactly. Investors need regular signals that the exec team is on their side. These layoffs (especially in troubled economic conditions) are just the kind of rituals that do that.

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#165

Post by koheripbal »

whichfawkes wrote: post #152
zackmorris wrote: post #119

Something I've never understood about layoffs is that large corporations have nearly unlimited borrowing power. Amazon's market cap is just over $1 trillion, so it could probably borrow up to ~10x or $10 trillion against that (almost half the US GDP). Isn't that enough money to keep employees through a downturn? The flip side is that individuals have almost no borrowing power. The bottom 40% of the US population has…

Why would they keep employees through a downturn? They're profit-driven entities. Of course they're going to dump externalities onto the public any chance they get, and we should strive to limit their capacity to do so... But in this case I'm not sure what you mean exactly? Nor do I understand what you mean about bringing antitrust because of layoffs? That sounds much more difficult to justify than most of the other…

This comment is unnecessarily cynical.

The unemployment benefits system is indeed designed to buffer against unemployment which is why both employees and employers pay into it.

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#166

Post by tmellon2 »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #86
colinmhayes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1,500,000 includes all the hourly workers but my understanding is that the 10,000 is corporate. Still only 3% of corporate workers which is less than they pip every year

This is the second time in these comments I've seen this distinction held out as self-evidently meaningful. I sincerely do not understand, can someone please explain why laying off salaried workers matters but hourly ones does not?

Generally speaking the average annual wage of corporate workers (mostly engineers) will be in the six figures. Hourly wage workers take home (on average) median US annual wages. So laying of 10000 engineers (in terms of immediate $ costs) is the equivalent of laying of approximately 30000 to 50000 hourly wage workers.

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#167

Post by insane_dreamer »

Mass layoffs makes the news because papers depend on sensational headlines, but it's important to put into perspective.

> The pandemic produced Amazon’s most profitable era on record ... Amazon doubled its work force in two years, and funneled its winnings into expansion and experimentation to find the next big things.

So it doubled its head count in the past 3 years and is now trimming by 3% (or 1% of global).

Update: Tried to figure out whether the doubling head count was corporate employees or total. I don't have time to dig into it now but a quick search did turn up Amazon's EEO reports in which they break employees down into a number of categories including "Professionals" -- which sounds like it would include engineers. 77K in 2019, 121K in 2021. So it's reasonable to assume those did double from 2019 to the present. See https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/workplace/our-workforce-dat...

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#168

Post by koheripbal »

zackmorris wrote: post #119

Something I've never understood about layoffs is that large corporations have nearly unlimited borrowing power. Amazon's market cap is just over $1 trillion, so it could probably borrow up to ~10x or $10 trillion against that (almost half the US GDP). Isn't that enough money to keep employees through a downturn? The flip side is that individuals have almost no borrowing power. The bottom 40% of the US population has…

Why does a corporation do what is in its financial interests?

That is what they are designed to do. That's why people pay to be part-owners.

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#169

Post by readthenotes1 »

zackmorris wrote: post #119

Something I've never understood about layoffs is that large corporations have nearly unlimited borrowing power. Amazon's market cap is just over $1 trillion, so it could probably borrow up to ~10x or $10 trillion against that (almost half the US GDP). Isn't that enough money to keep employees through a downturn? The flip side is that individuals have almost no borrowing power. The bottom 40% of the US population has…

Iirc, the Soviet Union used to guarantee a job. Not sure how well that worked out for them, though. Don't they have a massive alcoholism problem still?

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#170

Post by registeredcorn »

mr_gibbins wrote: post #108
jefftk wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

link?

Unpublished. It's still going through board approval. As/when it's put on my institution's open repository I'll post a link. Might be a few weeks though.

Interested to hear more, once it's through! :)
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