For those of you in the business who missed 2000-2002 and/or to a lesser extent 2008, you have no idea what is coming. Good luck.
Nobody has any idea what is coming. And I mean that literally in all ways.
Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
261–270 of 298 posts
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#262This 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…
This comment is just silly.
So you think a job at a startup is more secure? You think a job at a smaller company is more secure?
BigTech layoffs might make news because they're Big but plenty of smaller companies will be laying off as the economy contracts, too. Also 99% of Amazon employees will be fine and the ones that are fired, at least on the corporate side, will find new jobs quickly because the rest of the industry is clamoring to hire ex-FAANG. Hard to see how working there is some huge risk.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not everything people don't like is an externality. It has a specific meaning. Fired workers are not an externality.
But the unemployment that those workers receive is an externality. Now, the nature of UI does mean that it should wash out in the end, but in the near term laying off thousands of people simultaneously potentially puts a strain on the system.
No, unemployment costs is not a externality from the company. It is a public cost resulting from the layoff.
Externality has a specific meaning. It is a cost of production passed on to the customer or third party.
Not everything that has a consequence is an externality.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#264It's fascinating how there are so many layoffs going on across the economy and yet unemployment is staying so low.
Because 10k here and there is pretty meaningless relative to the total size of the labor market.
These layoffs only get press due to the brand names of the companies
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not good practice to connect your security systems to your voice assistant, especially door locks. Maybe this isn't the case in your home, but in smaller apartments it's certainly possible for a malicious actor to say "Hey {voice_assistant}, unlock front door", and they gain access. It's the modern day "open sesame".
> it's certainly possible for a malicious actor to say "Hey {voice_assistant}, unlock front door", and they gain access. It's the modern day "open sesame". I use Google Home and it has a voice match feature which will only accept on commands for allowed voices. Some people might not like this for the privacy aspect though.
Unless they've improved it over the last couple of years, Google's voice match is pretty easy to fool: When I played a recording of my friend's voice saying "hey Google" and then completed the sentence myself, the Home Mini thought I was him and let me access his calendar even though we have completely different voices.
Of course this is all academic. Anyone can get into a home via the windows. It's just that half of all Americans live in a home that has a gun, so getting out alive might not be as easy as getting in.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wish I could figure out how to do an Ask HN for non-profit hiring. My previous attempts failed.
Try government. Though I had no luck finding government jobs, because the red tape is ridiculous.
If you know C++ or are Near Omaha, can pass a background check. I know some people that are hiring.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which American company employs 100k+ DEVRLOPERS?
I'm sure in its peak IBM employed way more than that including their India and China teams. EDIT: found a source, 130K in india in 2017... == 33% of workforce "Today, the company employs 130,000 people in India — about one-third of its total work force, and more than in any other country. Their work spans the entire gamut of IBM’s businesses, from managing the computing needs of global giants like AT&T and Shell to p…
Yeah I mentioned US for that reason. If you include the Indian outsourcing shops then clearly there would be numerous. Honesty though calling them developers is a bit too much. Most of them are used as benchwarmers to inflate numbers and get deals.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
There are alternative ways to deal with a downturn, in the past German companies have successfully introduced part-time employment for all employees to avoid having to layoff employees. This avoids employee knowledge and experience from leaving, making it easier to scale back up once economy picks up again. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277267537_Securing_...
>This avoids employee knowledge and experience from leaving,
Amazon is very specifically optimizing their company to get rid of the need for both of those things!
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unemployment is still near historic lows.
I'm sure the thousands of people layed off and their families affected really care about that "record low unemployment".
If I am to be laid off, I would rather it happen while unemployment is low. This should make it easier to get a new job.
I still sympathize with these people, it sucks to be laid off. They are losing their jobs because someone at Amazon screwed up or took risks the laid off person couldn't control.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
Realistically they’ve been saying this since the 1950s
There was the dot com bubble burst in 2000, so there has actually been one. A few years after the 2008 crash sounds about right to when people started talking about tech bubbles again to me.
All the signs were there for everyone to see in the 2000 Dotcom Dotbomb. The root problem was a bunch of investors wildly investing in crappy tech companies, like tinder for cats. There were toxic assets, huge and publicly visible waste, low product output.
This time, there is a lot more growth from many companies but we also see the results of that work, products and services exist as a result. There is waste but not like in 2000.