Would be interesting to see if there is a strong relationship between the companies doing layoffs and the companies who did WFH en masse and might be thinking a layoff will “encourage” their compliance to come back to the office.
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Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
271–280 of 469 posts
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#272Right before COVID-19 stay at home order in Chicago, a bunch of improvisers who preformed at the popular i.o theater put together a list of demands which basically asked for a bunch of changes to make the lives of performers better. They were not going to perform until those changes were made. The owner didnt respond for a few days and then said, "Hey! Heard you. Great valid concerns. But I'm actually shutting the th…
That's why the time to make demands and organize was when this current tech boom was just getting started, when engineer salaries started to really pick up and before bootcamps and massive new waves of CS grads where in swing.
By organizing across the field, software engineers would have been able to have more input into the rate of engineer growth (which would have hurt bootcamps but generally lead to higher quality engineers, and avoided over hiring), compensation (which likely would have hurt some of the people making insane FAANG salaries, but lifted up most others), professional licensing (i.e. maybe you just do that leetcode/project/etc gauntlet once to get licensed, not for every new application), enforced professional ethics (as a profession we agree to limits on the kinds of exploitative work we do) etc, etc.
The problem is that anyone even suggesting this back then (and there were a few people) would be downvoted into oblivion. Engineers found rewarding, high paying, prestigious work easily and virtually everyone thought that was an eternal truth.
Now it's way, way too late.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be difficult to prove active collusion, its more like institutionalized collusion, and I doubt that's a crime. e.g. the same consulting firms are hired by all companies, and they will give the same advice when dealing with falling revenues, plunging stock prices etc.
Also, it doesn't make a lick of sense. Growing head count 50% over 2 years and then pulling back 5-10% isn't breaking the back of workers. It sucks for the 5-10% but big tech still has much more demand for workers than they have except for like 6 months of their existence.
Its going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
Right now, they've taken away or trimmed many benefits and increased expectations around performance. Will a change in hiring make them change the benefits structure, or will this be the new normal?
In particular, if there is a large backlog of workers looking for jobs after several quarters of reduced hiring, it will likely allow them to revisit compensation. It all depends on how exactly this pans out.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#274This is exactly what they're doing. The big players have gotten together in a room somewhere and tried to figure out how to push wages down, and they decided to just all fire a bunch of people at the same time. Every industry in the country engages in systematic and widespread price fixing (eggs, insulin, rent...) and this is just an example. They want to push wages down, push prices up, and that's how they make profit.
This American Life did an episode where they did a deep dive on a famous incidence of price fixing (it was some chemical in chicken feed). https://www.thisamericanlife.org/168/the-fix-is-in
The idea that tech giants dont collude to push down wages is, frankly, fanciful. We know about non-compete agreements and such- this is industry standard practice.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Would you say that right-to-work is also a libertarian concept? This isn't a common term where I'm from, so I am admittedly not intimately familiar with it, but as I understand its meaning, as defined by Wikipedia, it removes some degree of freedom of association. So, no, it is in stark contrast to libertarianism.
A lot of libertarian managers in the US would disagree with that. From a manager’s perspective the ability to fire anyone at any time is them exercising freedom of association. “Libertarian” has a specific connotation in the US, certainly when we’re discussing employment within the US.
> From a manager’s perspective the ability to fire anyone at any time is them exercising freedom of association.
And they wouldn't be wrong in a vacuum, but what you're forgetting about is contract. In order for association to commence, a union is going to present a contract that spells out what happens in that case, assuming it is of concern to the union members, and the manager will be bound to what has been agreed upon. Libertarianism isn't anarchy.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#276I’ve never worked for Big Tech, I’ve never even worked in one of the big tech hubs (Bay Area, anywhere in California, Seattle, Austin, NY, etc.), but I do have a hefty 6 figure salary because of the tech workers in those areas. My worry is my company will start to look at laying us off so they can replace us with laid off tech workers at a much lower rate.
To add a counterpoint - I've heard senior executives remark about the likelihood that many of those let go are the not the employees that you really _want_ to pickup. The reasoning they've implied there is that these big companies that hire so voraciously have simply made some mistakes along the way and used the current happenings to jettison those mistakenly-hired employees swiftly and efficiently. Note: I'm sure ma…
It goes in either direction... I think with Twitter, as an example, they ballooned and became more than an engineering culture... I think the layoffs were to really scale back to what is/was needed. Not necessarily a reflection on those let go, other than there were way more than needed for what the application is. I do hope they're able to be more agile moving forward, which seems to be the case so far.
For other things, I think some of it is short sightedness and may or may not be good/bad. For many of these layoffs, it's probably office politics as much as anything else.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#277Right before COVID-19 stay at home order in Chicago, a bunch of improvisers who preformed at the popular i.o theater put together a list of demands which basically asked for a bunch of changes to make the lives of performers better. They were not going to perform until those changes were made. The owner didnt respond for a few days and then said, "Hey! Heard you. Great valid concerns. But I'm actually shutting the th…
> or worse find some reason to let the person go
Making the demand is a reason. Whenever you ask your boss for a raise, it comes with the implication that if you don't get it, you'll leave. Even if you don't, they know you're not happy, so there's an argument to making the decision for you.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#278So big tech has 220,000 layoffs and there is not the merest hint of a blip in the unemployment rate. This is not a tragedy - these people are going to find jobs, good jobs. In fact it's quite likely that they will go into roles which might do something other than online advertising. You know, something useful.
Big tech layoffs should work differently than most industries and may not impact unemployment as much. Big tech employees a lot of H1B visas holders. If they cannot quickly find a new job, they will have to leave the country.
Yes, temporary workers who are no longer needed must leave the country. Because their positions are temporary. It’s in the name.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is insanely hard to build a business, and I speak as someone who has built businesses in both tech and franchising (which should theoretically be much more straightforwards). At the primordial stage, before there are reliable revenues, you must have everyone marching to the same drum. If you can’t do what I say, please GTFO because you are actively harming what is already hanging on by a thread. If I can’t fire ba…
You don't have the right to build a business. You have the right to try , of course, but it's not like there's some natural law that you should be able to succeed. So appeals to "it's hanging on by a thread!" don't really do much for me; maybe the viability of your business relies on an imbalance of power vs. your employees, in which case I'd really rather the thread be cut. Your comment about firing people is kinda…
> maybe the viability of your business relies on an imbalance of power vs. your employees
This is a weird take, as it absolutely does. Kind of how the viability of a military also relies on an imbalance of power between generals and privates. Power structures are fundamentally necessary in productive endeavours.
Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
I very much want you to be correct, but having been around for a good amount of time, it's not always as straightforward as you suggest. In many instances, companies are reluctant to hire people who have been laid off, because they imagine that if company A laid the person off, obviously something's wrong with the person. In some cases, someone can take a couple of years or so to finally find a job, and that's enough…
You do not have to divulge the basis of your departure from a company. "Creative differences".
As a hiring manager, I wouldn't even ask a question around departing an old company, whether they were laid-off or not. I'd have questions that were more along the line: "what will you miss from your old company, work day, etc." "what do you imagine your new role/work day would look like." "What won't you miss", etc...