Indeed cuts 15% of workforce, 2200 jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: Indeed cuts 15% of workforce, 2200 jobs

#31

Post by fzeroracer » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 12:33 AM UTC

orf wrote: post #28

fzeroracer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX is a company with all of it's employees and testing in one geographical location. Indeed is a global company spanning multiple languages and governments. This requires creating, designing and specializing for multiple languages and sensibilities. JP Indeed has additional integration with LINE. It's hyper specific to Japan but that integration is required for success. Multiply that by a few factors for operatin…

Even with the 60 or so countries listed here ( https://www.indeed.com/m/countries ), that’s ~230 employees per country. Still seems way to high, especially given the uneven size of some of the job markets in those listed countries.

If you were to solely take into account job market size then China alone would dwarf the entire list and require a massive team to maintain on its own for what I hope should be obvious reasons.

And this ignores that the job market size isn't related to the complexity of integration. If you're doing business in China your data retention and storage is going to be massively different than Europe which is different than the US which is different than Japan which is different than Indonesia. These will require some form of backend customization and integration with the common UI framework they use for their site design. You need QA teams, you need lawyers, you need managers and live ops engineers and specialists and researchers to drive user retention and businessmen to reach out to companies.

Have you ever worked in a global team environment? Or perhaps talked to your coworkers working on similar products in other countries?

Re: Indeed cuts 15% of workforce, 2200 jobs

#32

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 12:36 AM UTC

zdbrandon wrote: post #29

s1artibartfast wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

stock proce isnt revenue growth. IF comp is tied to revenue, it doesn't matter if the stock goes to the moon. The stock goes up because investors think that revenue will go up if they pay fewer salaries.

Profits, not revenue. But the point remains.

[deleted]

Re: Indeed cuts 15% of workforce, 2200 jobs

#33

Post by orf » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 12:39 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #31

orf wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with the 60 or so countries listed here ( https://www.indeed.com/m/countries ), that’s ~230 employees per country. Still seems way to high, especially given the uneven size of some of the job markets in those listed countries.

If you were to solely take into account job market size then China alone would dwarf the entire list and require a massive team to maintain on its own for what I hope should be obvious reasons. And this ignores that the job market size isn't related to the complexity of integration. If you're doing business in China your data retention and storage is going to be massively different than Europe which is different than…

Yes I understand the rationale behind “lots of bodies”.

As OP was rightly pointing out, there is a discrepancy here between output and size.

LinkedIn for example has many of the same issues and a lot more complex functionality. They manage to do this, compete with Indeed (and have a higher market share), with a relatively small number more people.

Re: Indeed cuts 15% of workforce, 2200 jobs

#34

Post by fzeroracer » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 12:44 AM UTC

orf wrote: post #33

fzeroracer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were to solely take into account job market size then China alone would dwarf the entire list and require a massive team to maintain on its own for what I hope should be obvious reasons. And this ignores that the job market size isn't related to the complexity of integration. If you're doing business in China your data retention and storage is going to be massively different than Europe which is different than…

Yes I understand the rationale behind “lots of bodies”. As OP was rightly pointing out, there is a discrepancy here between output and size. LinkedIn for example has many of the same issues and a lot more complex functionality. They manage to do this, compete with Indeed (and have a higher market share), with a relatively small number more people.

LinkedIn has 21000 employees. Which is significantly more than Indeed.

Re: Indeed cuts 15% of workforce, 2200 jobs

#35

Post by orf » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 12:53 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #34

orf wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I understand the rationale behind “lots of bodies”. As OP was rightly pointing out, there is a discrepancy here between output and size. LinkedIn for example has many of the same issues and a lot more complex functionality. They manage to do this, compete with Indeed (and have a higher market share), with a relatively small number more people.

LinkedIn has 21000 employees. Which is significantly more than Indeed.

Yes, about 25%-30%. And they do way more, in a lot of geos.

Or are you saying LinkedIn has 14,000 employees just for their job board functionality, and only 6k for the other larger, more complex parts of their system?

No? So what explains the relatively small percentage difference in employees but a large difference in functionality and market share?

Re: Indeed cuts 15% of workforce, 2200 jobs

#36

Post by Mizoguchi » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 1:09 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #27

Mizoguchi wrote: post #25

How come Indeed has so many employees? 15K doing what? SpaceX is sending people to orbit on reusable rockets that can land on a moving platform on the ocean, with 4K less people. How is this even possible? Are most of Indeed employees sales reps?

SpaceX is a company with all of it's employees and testing in one geographical location. Indeed is a global company spanning multiple languages and governments. This requires creating, designing and specializing for multiple languages and sensibilities. JP Indeed has additional integration with LINE. It's hyper specific to Japan but that integration is required for success. Multiply that by a few factors for operatin…

Excuse my ignorance. Still feels excessive for a global company. I worked for a handful of multinationals for many years and had the opportunity to live in many parts of the world including. .. yes, Japan. I know by experience a global workforce doesn't mean duplication of business units and language/culture is not an excuse to have them. Developer groups for each region? What? Compliance and legal is not necessarily as big as you would think, unless you are perhaps a pharmaceutical. In my latest company, a large manufacturing company with deals worth billions we handled compliance for the entire US and Canada out of a small office in Philadelphia with the support of a small legal firm from NY,if there were more than 20 guys in that office I would be surprised.

Re: Indeed cuts 15% of workforce, 2200 jobs

#37

Post by s1artibartfast » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 1:14 AM UTC

zdbrandon wrote: post #29

s1artibartfast wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

stock proce isnt revenue growth. IF comp is tied to revenue, it doesn't matter if the stock goes to the moon. The stock goes up because investors think that revenue will go up if they pay fewer salaries.

Profits, not revenue. But the point remains.

FairPoint, the article said Revenue so even layoffs won't help unless they shift there expenses from Devs to marketing or something like that

Re: Indeed cuts 15% of workforce, 2200 jobs

#38

Post by Ancalagon » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 1:36 AM UTC

jkl5xx wrote: post #23

Ancalagon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indicates this layoff is probably actually cost-cutting necessity, given it had to be done immediately with no regard to performance.

there were definite patterns. Certain orgs, roles, and offices seem to have been more heavily affected than others

ah then I guess I was wrong

Re: Indeed cuts 15% of workforce, 2200 jobs

#39

Post by NonEUCitizen » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 2:06 AM UTC

Mizoguchi wrote: post #25

How come Indeed has so many employees? 15K doing what? SpaceX is sending people to orbit on reusable rockets that can land on a moving platform on the ocean, with 4K less people. How is this even possible? Are most of Indeed employees sales reps?

Would anyone know how many employees they had pre-pandemic? (i.e. how much they grew recently)

Re: Indeed cuts 15% of workforce, 2200 jobs

#40

Post by roflyear » Thu, Mar 23, 2023, 2:10 AM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #20

SamuelAdams wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, stock prices typically go up after layoffs are announced. So it’s not like he is losing money.

stock proce isnt revenue growth. IF comp is tied to revenue, it doesn't matter if the stock goes to the moon. The stock goes up because investors think that revenue will go up if they pay fewer salaries.

Higher stock value helps companies achieve things. See GME