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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

#191

Post by baggachipz »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #154
baggachipz wrote: post #113

I worked at AOL back when they did quarterly "staff reductions". They would go and hire lots of them right back; it was an accounting trick. Never mind the fact that families were affected and employees were constantly stressed near the end of every quarter. Those things don't matter, quarterly numbers do when growth has stalled.

This is a great tactic, where competent, good workers find a more stable job, and the ones unable to get a better job are then rehired. On one hand, you can bully them more, and they'll stay, on the other hand, they're so bad at their job, no one else wants them either.

I believe they call this "contracting". Which is not what they purported to do. Having to go through all the bullshit about the hiring process, benefits, taxes, and all that over and over is an absurd inefficiency. It also doesn't help when people are just trying to feed and care for their families.

Because of that experience (and lots of other anecdotal evidence), I see no reason for anybody to ever work at amazon unless they are ok with being a contractor.

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

#192

Post by spoiler »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #95
cheschire wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not aware of this term before. For others: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/jeff-bezos-day-1-versus-2-com...

Non-LinkedIn version: https://ourdinnertable.wordpress.com/2025/05/06/jeff-bezos-d... > “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by death. And that’s why it’s always Day 1.” Sharks don't look back, cause they don't have necks. Necks are for sheep

Is this one of those things that are meant to sound deep and profound by inventing terminology, but isn't? That's such a like day 2 person thing to do.

(Actually don't know if I used day 2 correctly, feels a bit like trying to use skibidi ohio in a sentence)

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

#194

Post by Hikikomori »

ericmay wrote: post #144
martin-t wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Won't work if the government is willing to use the army against you, like the current one.

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

#196

Post by reassess_blind »

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.

Companies have no incentive to employ as many people as possible. Really it’s the opposite, make as much money as possible, while paying as few employees as possible.

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

#197

Post by Esophagus4 »

elric wrote: post #76

You would think that a company that's making some 50 billion in profits every year would be able to find something useful to do for those 14k people.

They definitely seem to have gone from “invest in growing the business at all costs” to “ruthless efficiency and cost cuts”

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

#198

Post by jwmerrill »

latexr wrote: post #24
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.

I was just thinking the same, this is quite the weasel wording. Not only the “losses” but the passive voice. As if Amazon is a person who walked to work one day and realise it has a hole in its pocket from which thousands of jobs fell off. “Oh well, these things happen, not my fault and nothing I can do about it”, Amazon says as it shrugs its shoulders and whistles down the factory floor with a skip in its step.

“Passive voice” is a grammatical term.

“Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses,” is not an example of the passive voice.

“14,000 workers were fired by Amazon,” is an example of the passive voice.

There is not a 1:1 relationship between being vague about agency and using the passive voice.

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

#199

Post by jalapenos »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #154
baggachipz wrote: post #113

I worked at AOL back when they did quarterly "staff reductions". They would go and hire lots of them right back; it was an accounting trick. Never mind the fact that families were affected and employees were constantly stressed near the end of every quarter. Those things don't matter, quarterly numbers do when growth has stalled.

This is a great tactic, where competent, good workers find a more stable job, and the ones unable to get a better job are then rehired. On one hand, you can bully them more, and they'll stay, on the other hand, they're so bad at their job, no one else wants them either.

I mean, no-one messages each other on AOL now so yeah. Those quarterly earnings though, they were something

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

#200

Post by throwaway173738 »

adrianN wrote: post #56
martin-t wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

People can use money to buy shares in companies to participate in their profits. Owners of companies carry the risk that the company goes bankrupt.

What’s the actual hazard there? I get that a company going bankrupt causes money to evaporate into wages and capital. But are the owners actually facing any real risk? You have to be an accredited investor to buy in in any real way and one of the tests is that your investment is below a certain percentage of your means.
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