Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power • Hacker News Board

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#351

Post by gumby » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #32

gumby wrote: post #23

absurd: > “Controlling labor costs via periodic layoffs is like breathing for Silicon Valley: cyclical, necessary for life,” Malcolm Harris The current wave of layoff is unusual, hence being extensively discussed on sites like HN.

Layoff for this tech boom but what about before the late 2000s?

You mean the 2008 global financial crisis? Many companies died, some companies did do layoffs but that was in response to an actual financial crisis, something not happening now and unlikely to happen in 2023 or 2024. Nothing like that nitwit was describing.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#352

Post by Apocryphon » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #351

Apocryphon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Layoff for this tech boom but what about before the late 2000s?

You mean the 2008 global financial crisis? Many companies died, some companies did do layoffs but that was in response to an actual financial crisis, something not happening now and unlikely to happen in 2023 or 2024. Nothing like that nitwit was describing.

Weren't periodic layoffs something that happened up to and during the dot-com bust? I'm talking about '80s-'90s Silicon Valley.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#353

Post by gruez » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

jklinger410 wrote: post #160

theptip wrote: post #104

I just don’t buy it. To be clear this is claiming that the CEOs are sitting behind a desk stroking a cat, thinking “now I will crush the labor movement and make all my workers feel less secure”. This is just not a problem that Pichai is facing. Occam’s Razor points to the very simple, non-conspiratorial answer that it really is just stock-price driven (ie market-driven) thinking (one could say “lack of actual strateg…

And I don't buy the coincidental timing of the fed trying to push us into a recession, which they were not being successful at, following shortly with public companies like Google suddenly finding a bunch of inessential staff to cut. It's not like Google is taking out loans for payroll, or that it was obvious that this move was necessary. These inessential employees have been inessential for years.

>It's not like Google is taking out loans for payroll

They might not be actively taking out loans, but that doesn't mean they're immune to interest rates. Higher interest rates means that a dollar in 10 or 20 years is suddenly worth less than a dollar today. That means investors suddenly care more about how many profits can be generated today, rather than whatever moonshot projects that google is working on.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#354

Post by bbor » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #297

bbor wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re applying a “conspiratorial” vibe that isn’t necessary - employers are naturally incentivized to keep employees insecure and underpaid (relative to what they’d be paid if they organized, at least). It sounds like you’re knowledgeable on these topics, so I’d be surprised if you disagreed with any of these assertions: 1. Big tech would be willing to burn billions of dollars to crush any chance of tech uni…

It's not me that's applying the conspiratorial vibe, it's the OP, and that's what I'm complaining about: > “Controlling labor costs via periodic layoffs is like breathing for Silicon Valley: cyclical, necessary for life"... The layoffs, Harris says, have “very little to do with long- or even medium-term strategy except as it pertains to cultivating an insecure workforce.” This article is explicitly claiming that the…

I agree that it isn’t mono-casual (cool word!), but I’m still convinced worker sentiment (which I’d classify union membership as a derivative issue of) is the main reason. I have lots of thoughts about where this fits into their priorities in general, but most of my proof is already discussed above, so I’ll focus on this instead:

These companies are not anywhere close to laying off enough people to get back to pre-COVID headcount, and if these layoffs were intended to boost the stock price, they don’t seem to have had much of an impact. Google (sorry I think about this one more than the others, for obvious reasons) is up 11% MoM compared to 5% for the S&P 100, which is good, but… idk seems hard to say that’s worth the trade off. Especially considering the huge swings the stock has taken over the past few years and months

Re: impacting wages I can try to come back to this once I’m done making ads for the day. My general narrative is “the lawsuit settled, then meta started offering progressively larger packages for experienced devs, which drove up other companies offers for the same devs” but I do not have source on hand.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#355

Post by jlarocco » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC

area51org wrote: post #122

JackFr wrote: post #86

So 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.

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…

Every situation is unique, but I haven't seen this myself and I personally haven't had any problems finding a job after being laid off, twice in the last 20 years.

Context is important. If 20 out of 120k people get laid off then I might be suspicious of those 20. But if its 20k out of 120k then it's almost certain that whole departments and teams were cut, so it's hard to say anything about the individuals.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#356

Post by 0x457 » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC

baud147258 wrote: post #31

rmorey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Union-busting, NDA’s, restricting new slack channels, non-competes - all the usual ways!

> restricting new slack channels how is restricting the creation of chatrooms in a communication tool that's likely provided by the company in any way comparable to any of your other examples? If Slack is provided by your company, they would likely have mean to get everything you might have written there, that's already an incentive to move any discussion the company might frown on (like talk of unionizing efforts) o…

Slack doesn't share DMs and private rooms without court order.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#357

Post by kilburn » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 6:31 PM UTC

monero-xmr wrote: post #230

deanCommie wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean isn't that default position? Everyone has to go into situations like this with eyes open. If there was no risk to striking or demanding better working conditions, it wouldn't be as rare as it is. I think everyone is aware that by default "the companies" have more power than the individual or the worker class. What's unusual is that in 2021 the balance shifted for a little while for the privileged tech worker c…

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…

It is not _necessary_ to get large investments and people who dedicate every walking minute of their lives to build a succesful company. There are plenty of businesses built on the back of solid work done under healthy life-work balance conditions.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#358

Post by staticcaucasian » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

benreesman wrote: post #340

TC at Big Tech is generally dominated by equity at the outlier end. Everywhere else it doesn’t look like pay is all that different to 5 or even 10 years ago. So either the effects haven’t shown up yet or else this was just an opportune time to stack rank and yank. If you go on levels.fyi you’ll find that fixed cash (“base”) is the same mid-100s to mid-300s that it was the throughout the last decade for L3/new-grad an…

Around these parts a lot of the affected laid off were the upper end of that equity range. Expensive long-timers or over-hires who aren't producing at the level they negotiated. I don't feel bad for them.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#359

Post by sangnoir » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #104

I just don’t buy it. To be clear this is claiming that the CEOs are sitting behind a desk stroking a cat, thinking “now I will crush the labor movement and make all my workers feel less secure”. This is just not a problem that Pichai is facing. Occam’s Razor points to the very simple, non-conspiratorial answer that it really is just stock-price driven (ie market-driven) thinking (one could say “lack of actual strateg…

> The idea that Google would struggle as hard as it did to meet its aggressive hiring goals over the last few years, then axe strong engineers just to make others scared, really stretches my credulity.

A bit of a morbid counter-example: does one worry about "strong T-cells" when undergoing chemo, or strong muscle fibers during a limb amputation? The assumption that the C-Suite inherently cares about individual engineers during layoffs seems like a slight case of main character syndrome. If your department is being excised, others departments are downsizing, and the company as a whole is not hiring for your role, nothing can save you. Layoffs are not perfectly planned and executed with surgical precision[1], they are messy and approximate.

1. I realize the irony of using "surgical precision" after my earlier counter-example of the imprecision of amputations.

Re: Big Tech is using layoffs to crush worker power

#360

Post by buildbot » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #267

tapatio wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also makes logical sense. Why would you let go of a 10X engineer? You'd have to be an idiot.

This was decades ago, but my uncle has a PhD in chemistry and worked for a very large and famous chemical company. They had a round of layoffs and fired his entire division. Well, he had a bunch of patents in his name that the company suddenly didn't have access to. Someone realized their mistake and asked him to come back. He already had multiple offers from competitors so they had to pay him a huge increase in sala…

Were they from before working at that company? Pretty unusual for patents to not be assigned to the company they were working for though? If I leave Microsoft, my patents stay assigned to them while still authored by me/others.