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Amazon cuts 16k jobs

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#631

Post by hintymad »

shartshooter wrote: post #144

This summer I went camping and at the campground next to me was a middle manager at Amazon. I’ve been out of the workforce for about a year, so I asked him how much of an impact AI was having in his role. He told me that he had worked to develop a tool that would replace effectively all of the middle management function that he was responsible for: gathering information from folks below him, distilling it down and re…

> He told me that he had worked to develop a tool that would replace effectively all of the middle management function that he was responsible for: gathering information from folks below him, distilling it down and reporting that to people above him.

That sounds an organizational issue. I always thought that a manager should push product vision at their own level, get and organize resources, and assess the talent as fairly as possible. That is, a combination of the job of a general and a PM. Controlling the information may be necessary for survival, but it should not be the job description.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#632

Post by Saline9515 »

milch wrote: post #442
mc32 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are future taxpayers the majority with parents who were not a tax burden --net positive tax contribution. People without Children benefit from the taxes paid by the children of people who rear children -i.e. people without children aren't "cashing out" their tax contributed retirement --that contribution went to other retirees.

Immigrants pay social security taxes, unemployment taxes, ... that they also will never be able to benefit from. Those are purely for the benefit of US citizens

It depends if the immigrant is hired because the native worker is deemed too expensive. In this case, it contributes to reducing contributions through wage suppression.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#633

Post by dragonwriter »

caminante wrote: post #625
lovich wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re arguing that tariffs aren’t inflationary by bringing up other events affecting the economy, which I agree with ‘hypeatei needs explaining, but even assuming those do offset the tariffs you’re still incorrect. Tariffs definitionally are inflationary.

>You’re arguing that tariffs aren’t inflationary by bringing up other events affecting the economy Huh? You're not reading what I said and instead are relying on accusations. It's also weird to say direct behaviors triggered by tariffs don't play into realized inflation. That's mental gymnastics. >Tariffs definitionally are inflationary. No. Weird thing to be confidently incorrect about. Tariffs are price increasing…

> Tariffs are price increasing (colloquially "inflationary"), but not definitionally inflationary in the economic meaning. Look it up.

Weird (okay, not all that weird, but ironic, in context) thing to be confidently incorrect about.

Outside of the overtly ideology-over-description Austrian School of economics, which has a different jargon designed to advance their ideology, the general definition of (unqualified) inflation in economics is a sustained increase in general price levels.

And belief that the Austrian School usage is just the “economic meaning” is a pretty good sign that someone doesn't understand even Austrian School economics beyond rote recitation of doctrines and aphorisms.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#634

Post by Buttons840 »

risyachka wrote: post #623
mrtksn wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH the last 20-30 years was exactly like that but computers were eliminating other peoples jobs for really good profits for the investors and really good salaries for the workers doing the elimination. Before that people were eliminating blue colar workers with highly productive machines and industrial robots. I don't see how eliminating your co-workers is any different. Software ate the world and now AI will eat th…

>> AI will eat the "software professionals" you mean AI will eat everyone, because if software professionals will be automated - all other white collar jobs will be too via software. And then all resources will be poured in hardware and blue collar jobs will be automated too, at least those that have more value.

Once an AI runs a single company well, all publicly traded companies will have a legal obligation to at least consider replacing the C-suite with AI. In theory. I'll believe it when I see it.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#635

Post by shimman »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #457
shimman wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech industry has no problems working with state police forces to imprison woman that get abortions or just generally profit off of making teenage girls depressed. We should applaud those women for not willing to date people that inflict misery and death upon them. Maybe the kids are alright after all?

What industry has put actual resistance to these in these times? Plenty of Hollywood has wool over their eyes (though a few are starting to speak out), Sports bent the knee for a full year (especially FIFA), law firms capitulated, hospitals aren't gonna lose their massive profit margins over the health care stuff. No industry is coming out of this with a clean bill of health. You as an individual can only choose to n…

Industries don't, people do. One thing to keep in mind is that corporations have always worked with fascism, they will never resist but workers can. Sabotage takes many forms and one can just look at how Dutch resistance worked against the Nazis.

You can do many things to sabotage that are nonviolent and also highly effective:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_resistance

I'd also be weary with your examples; many hospitals are experiencing effective strikes or law firms that capitulated are struggling finding clients or lost valuable workers.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#636

Post by Havoc »

dzonga wrote: post #375

Insightful Comment from X - https://xcancel.com/PlumbNick/status/2016500347053773198?s=2... I was an L7, I led global AI enablement. I built systems executives depended on, moved wherever the company needed me and fixed problems that had been sitting untouched because no one else could untangle them. And I was still cut. Here’s the part we’re all supposed to politely ignore: in the U.S. right now, experience isn’t an…

>>This is a rules problem

Oh no, it's much worse. It's a global market working efficiently problem.

Bad news for jobs that can flow over the intertubes...

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#637

Post by Saline9515 »

echelon wrote: post #417
bluecheese452 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my job is shipped to India today why would I care that twenty years later the boss is Indian instead of American?

> If my job is shipped to India today Immigration isn't "shipping the job to India". It's bringing the labor here and contributing to our economy. This might have a suppressive force on wages, but it lifts the overall economy and creates more opportunity and demand. Offshoring is permanent loss. It causes whatever jobs and industry are still here to atrophy and die. The overall economy weakens. Your outlook in retire…

Usually the next step of this failed discourse is to explain that locals are so entitled that they don't want to do hard jobs for the minimum wage, due to decades of wage suppression done thanks to immigration.

In France, being a cook used to pay very well, now that most cooks in Paris are from India or Sri Lanka, often without a proper visa or at the minimum wage, no local wants to do this anymore (working conditions are awful).

The industry then whines loudly about "the lack of qualified (cheap) workers"

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#638

Post by tokioyoyo »

geodel wrote: post #602
chrysoprace wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be a time when software developers become obsolete, and I don't pretend to know the future, but if today's models are anything to go by then it won't happen any time soon. At the end of the day, there'll still be a need for highly skilled technical experts, whatever that job looks like.

> At the end of the day, there'll still be a need for highly skilled technical experts, whatever that job looks like. Well, this is kind of obvious right. Highly skilled people of next generation will do fine. The point is millions of highly skilled successful people of today could soon be below average category, jobless and can be called clueless, stuck in old ways who didn't simply see what is happening in the worl…

> Highly skilled people of next generation will do fine.

I would bet for the opposite. In a huge rush to optimization and job elimination, early career people suffer the most. However it also makes it impossible to switch careers, start from scratch, and etc.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#639

Post by wasabi991011 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #626
Aurornis wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That person's pinned message shows that he started his campaign for Congress almost 2 months ago. He says he was laid off today. He's been Tweeting non-stop daily and appears to be working hard on his campaign. I don't think you can separate his active run for Congress from this layoff. Making an actual run for Congress is a huge time commitment and I don't see how it would be compatible with being an L7 manager at A…

> Making an actual run for Congress is a huge time commitment and I don't see how it would be compatible with being an L7 manager at Amazon. Does that matter? If people vote for him, he'll end up in Congress, regardless of "it matching" or not. The current president is a TV celebrity who ran a bunch of failed businesses, some middle manager from Amazon could surely be in Congress then?

I think you missed what GP was implying, which is that the tweeter must have been slacking at their Amazon job and spending company time on their congressional run.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#640

Post by embedding-shape »

wasabi991011 wrote: post #639
embedding-shape wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Making an actual run for Congress is a huge time commitment and I don't see how it would be compatible with being an L7 manager at Amazon. Does that matter? If people vote for him, he'll end up in Congress, regardless of "it matching" or not. The current president is a TV celebrity who ran a bunch of failed businesses, some middle manager from Amazon could surely be in Congress then?

I think you missed what GP was implying, which is that the tweeter must have been slacking at their Amazon job and spending company time on their congressional run.

Ah, yes, that might be, that'd make sense too. Thanks.
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