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Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

blogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#171

Post by Espressosaurus »

astrea wrote: post #157
ActionHank wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like tech companies are being more severe with their layoffs because they were over aggressive with hiring during the pandemic. Many went through a massive surge in demand which they either thought was going to be permanent or had to hire to keep the machine moving.

I keep hearing this, and I would love to believe it, but does anyone have a concrete source that confirms this is the case?

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/num...

163K employees in 2020 to 220K employees in 2022.

And they're on the low of the hiring boom.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#172

Post by mardifoufs »

yokoprime wrote: post #68
monero-xmr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the “let’s force companies to become unprofitable” theory. I think Venezuela and Argentina are good places for you.

Plenty of profitable companies in Europe. It might be easier to become profitable in the US since you have less of a safety net, but that's a price US voters are willing to pay. Pointing to corrupt developing countries whenever socialized healthcare is brought up is disingenuous.

Do you think european corporations don't do mass layoffs? What is this completely false view of europe so many seem to have?

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#173

Post by willcipriano »

notch656c wrote: post #120
vikingerik wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and that's one reason why costs have ballooned so much, the need to subsidize people who didn't pay while they didn't have a condition and now do. The temporary plans aren't even necessary, if you can wait until the next regular enrollment period. The ACA originally tried to hide that vulnerability by making insurance mandatory, then it appeared when that forcible mandate was repealed. Edit to reply to the reply…

... so we have the worst of both worlds. Insurers are forced to take pre-existing conditions, but you can wait until you have a condition before buying it. I don't think that's even "insurance" at that point.... America may quite possible have the absolute dumbest system humanly possible.

The best part? The US spends more per captia than any other OECD nation on socialized medicine. The United Kingdom's NHS costs around half, per capita and delivers universal coverage.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#174

Post by irrational »

pixl97 wrote: post #130
joshribakoff wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some low performing employees just wont leave on their own. Sometimes its the higher performers who feel they deserve more compensation and leave. With your proposal the company could end up with only the low performers which is the opposite intent of a layoff

Commonly called the Dead Sea Effect. You evaporate out your water and you're just left with salt.

How does that analogy work? Traditionally salt is very valuable. It was even used as payment/money at times (worth your salt). You can preserve food with it. It gives food flavor (if you've ever accidentally omitted salt from baked goods, like bread and cookies, you know how terrible things taste without salt).

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#175

Post by notch656c »

willcipriano wrote: post #173
notch656c wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... so we have the worst of both worlds. Insurers are forced to take pre-existing conditions, but you can wait until you have a condition before buying it. I don't think that's even "insurance" at that point.... America may quite possible have the absolute dumbest system humanly possible.

The best part? The US spends more per captia than any other OECD nation on socialized medicine. The United Kingdom's NHS costs around half, per capita and delivers universal coverage.

Yeah. As a a pretty hardcore ancap who hates socialized anything, I'll still take NHS over our current system. Anything is better than our current bastardized system.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#176

Post by moneywoes »

bhouston wrote: post #166
bork1 wrote: post #164

Seems predictable that this announcement would come right after switching to unlimited PTO. I would imagine this reduces the money that the company plans to pay out by quite a bit if they used to pay outgoing employees for unused PTO. Maybe I'm being unnecessarily cynical, though.

I think it is more about the employees who stay. Giving unlimited PTO is a way to make the remaining employees more happy. So it is like a way to try to balance out the negative effects of the layoff on team moral...

Does it really make remaining employees unhappy when people are less likely to claim PTO and don’t get pay outs after firing

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#177

Post by imadethis »

bork1 wrote: post #164

Seems predictable that this announcement would come right after switching to unlimited PTO. I would imagine this reduces the money that the company plans to pay out by quite a bit if they used to pay outgoing employees for unused PTO. Maybe I'm being unnecessarily cynical, though.

They did pay out employees for their remaining bank of PTO when they announced the switch, so this should have limited financial impact.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#178

Post by DarkNova6 »

> Could there be a tech recession? Yes. Was there a bubble in valuations? Absolutely. Did Meta overhire? Probably.

I'm glad we agree

> But is that why they are laying people off? Of course not. Meta has plenty of money. These companies are all making money.

How does this follow any logic at all. He does not even dispute that overhiring took place. Should companies continue with a stupid hiring frenzy until they run out of money? This is the logical implication.

> They are doing it because other companies are doing it.

How is this explanation better than any other? This is such a strong claim and he offers ZERO evidence for it. And gross overgeneralizations like "oh, there are cases in which..." are argumental rubbish. This infuriates me because this is bad science and plainly opinionated.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#179

Post by not_the_fda »

bhouston wrote: post #166
bork1 wrote: post #164

Seems predictable that this announcement would come right after switching to unlimited PTO. I would imagine this reduces the money that the company plans to pay out by quite a bit if they used to pay outgoing employees for unused PTO. Maybe I'm being unnecessarily cynical, though.

I think it is more about the employees who stay. Giving unlimited PTO is a way to make the remaining employees more happy. So it is like a way to try to balance out the negative effects of the layoff on team moral...

There is nothing unlimited about unlimited PTO. Its a removal of a paid benefit. When they let you go they don't have to pay for accrued PTO.

There is no contract stating how much PTO you can take, its up to your manager, could be zero, could be four weeks, who knows. Could change when your manager changes.

Its an accounting trick to remove PTO from the accounting books and remove a paid benefit to employees.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 10k workers

#180

Post by smugma »

JackFr wrote: post #84
photonbeam wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The writing has been on the wall for months though from internal comms What did the hints look like?

Not sure here, but in my experience no backfill hires for voluntary leavers is a pretty good warning.

Other companies stopped backfilling a while ago but doesn't mean they plan on laying people off (and you can look at 2008-2010 for reference to see that some companies didn't backfill but didn't have layoffs). Not over-growing and then shrinking through attrition is one way to rightsize a company in tougher times.
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