Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

That would be a creative and different way to hire local unemployed people.

But it'll give you a reputation that makes it difficult to entice the sort of people whose current employers don't want them to leave.

> The ideal is ...

Nope. That was perhaps the case in the 50-80s, but today we can do much better, and it's dependent on the people, the culture, and the market/product structure and strategy.

Yeah, I think most normal people would just never apply and that's perfectly reasonable. I don't think working at Google is FOR normal people. I am a normal person and I'm pretty sure Google is not suffering from the lack of me! :D

You know, I work in tech but I have never attempted to have a Career in Tech. I definitely don't own a whiteboard and I'm sure I'd never get past the resume stage. (I've only actively applied for a couple of jobs in my life and all in the past year, purely because I thought I should REALLY get some experience with applying for jobs. I actually just had an interview and bombed it so much, omg, at one point I claimed not to know JavaScript! :D I don't think it's for me.)

But out of the rareified circles of HN, I've not found any of the career stuff talked up on here to be necessary anyway. There's more code that needs writing than coders to write it and so long as that's true there'll be work going. I work a few days a week for a company and the rest for myself. I have fun and write code and invent things and people generally give me enough money to pay my bills so I'm happy with that. It's a pretty sweet deal! Before I was a coder I was an unpaid family caregiver (hence no school or credentials or career) so compared to that I can't really imagine a programming job that could really genuinely be BAD. They are all simply gradations of sweet.

My brother (who did massively go to school) works at Google and loves it. I drop in and hang out with him there sometimes and it does seem great for a certain kind of person. And they have so many resources and work on loads of fun games and obviously it would be great to be rich as well. I think it's really clear why it's so attractive. If you think you have a shot then go for it!

But if you know you don't have a shot, why break your heart over it, is my view. It's not a bad thing to be clear eyed about your prospects in life.

They do some great machine learning research and I am sure good research in other fields.

>But I think you'll agree that it'd be ridiculous to shovel money to families making $200K+ a year.

I wouldn't; reality is more nuanced and circumstantial than your blanket generalization would like it to be. While it's true that in many places $200k is a substantial amount of money, there are places (California, for instance, particularly the Bay Area) where the cost of living is high enough that a couple earning $200k may still be living paycheck to paycheck and $2900 doesn't even cover rent. The loss of even one income in that household could be devastating.

>And the check is not conditioned on whether you're still employed (which most people are).

I alluded to that condition by my use of the phrase, "If they're unemployed".

>TL;DR: a lot of people who are still working are getting what to them is a substantial amount of money. They'll be spending it.

While I am sure that many people will spend it in ways that are more recreational than others, I am not so sure that as many people will be doing that as you assume. Jobless claims are expected to reach a whopping 15% soon[1], many people still employed are finding themselves working reduced hours resulting in reduced pay[2], and hiring is down[2]. The current data available is from March, which means we're likely to see data for April reporting even fewer hours worked - which means a continued decrease in take-home pay for many people still working - and even fewer jobs hiring.

The reality is that there is a lot of uncertainty right now. Many people still working are probably on the edge of their seat about their company's long-term prospects - sure they can make it for now, but how does a shutdown that could go on for many more months allow their workplace to continue to sustain itself? It's foolish to assume that the employment numbers we are seeing now have leveled off and won't continue to rise, especially if this continues through summer. More businesses will close or cut back on hours and more people will be out of work.

That thought process is likely playing out across the country in many homes, so I would expect more people to pocket the money and use it wisely than to sign up for new subscriptions that they don't need than you would think.

[1]https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jobless-claims-might-top-5...

[2]https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/3/21203199/state-of-employ...