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Amazon cuts 16k jobs

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#681

Post by pm90 »

kburman wrote: post #622
locusofself wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but at some point in the past, "Amazon India" was not a thing. Nor was "Microsoft India" and so forth. Surely you can understand what it feels like to be an American tech worker in a super high cost of living area, looking at reduction in headcount and continual offshoring of jobs as time goes by. I live in Seattle area, work at one of these big companies, I work with people in India almost every day and have b…

I get the fear, but look at it from the investor's perspective. The US market is tapped out, Amazon is already everywhere it can be. Amazon isn't expanding in India out of love for the country or a desire to see it grow. They are doing it because Wall Street demands infinite growth every single year. Amazon India went from zero to a market leader in a decade not because of charity, but because that is where the new m…

They can capture the market without moving the workforce there. Meta/Instagram/WA have dominated Indian market for a decade now.

It seems like this is pure labor arbitrage. Growth is gone so the only way to increase profits is by cutting costs, with labor force being the top line item.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#682

Post by heresie-dabord »

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…

> if you’re expensive because you’re good at what you do, the system eventually “optimizes” you out.

This is how layoffs have always worked. The pretext changes.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#683

Post by LPisGood »

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.

That’s the thing here. Software engineering is an intelligence-complete problem. If AI can solve it, then it can solve any sort of knowledge work like accounting, financial analysis, etc

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#684

Post by _heimdall »

Aurornis wrote: post #519
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…

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…

Unless I'm mistaken, isn't it illegal to base layoffs on individual performance? My understanding was that it can't legally be considered a layoff unless it meets pretty strict selection requirements at the group level (cutting orgs, cutting a "random" % of a role or org to reduce headcount, etc).

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#685

Post by paul7986 »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #590
paul7986 wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just lost my UX Researcher, Designer, UI Developer and CX Support job (8 years) two weeks of ago. They said doing a great job but have to lay you off. Within a week i put my house up for sale and received an offer. Time to downsize, "try," to stay in tech yet study to be a nurse. My field and career of 20 years seems like a vanishing one.

Sorry to hear that. But coming to this point, its absolutely unfathomable seeing the difference between these two types of things On One hand we have cursor whose burning like 5-6 Million $ of money in trying to build a browser only for it to be riddled with bugs and literally just the money went into fire (read emsh's post and how he built better alternative) I mean I guess I learnt something from them burning 5 mil…

Well it's a small govt contracting company. The adminstration cutting down on federal jobs, IT contracts and the tech layoffs has/is flooding the market with UX/UI folks in these parts (mid Atlantic region). Now AI is hastening the shrinking of this field.

The contracting company I worked for promotes on their LinkedIn their use of AI saying we created this prototype with AI in less then a day vs. years, months and days. In September they told us this is the way forward as all govt contractors are bidding for contracts with smaller teams using AI. Per that story they are telling they need to change to survive.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#686

Post by loeg »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #203
loeg wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2008 was a lot worse.

2008 didn't really impact tech sector much though. Companies continued to hire through it, and in fact those that didn't often had a headcount deficit afterwards. And also the worst of 2008 was confined to the US. What we have now is more like 2001. Also most of these big companies were completely dysfunctional on their hiring through 21/22, just going completely apeshit. Now they're making everyone suffer for it.

Much less severe than 2001, where tech lost 250,000 jobs peak to trough (~18.5% from 2001 to 2003). Current downturn from peak (2022) is about 80,000 jobs (~3.2%). The timeframe for this period is longer and the magnitude is much lower.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES6054150001

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#687

Post by pezezin »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #645
socalgal2 wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm super sympathetic that losing your job sucks. I lost mine once. At the same time, what's the alternative? Progress happens. We no longer have liveries for holding horses nor horse shoe makers (not at the level we used to). We no longer have telephone operators. Making up jobs to keep people employed isn't a viable solution to me. Supporting them in some way (re-training, UBI, service work, ...) seems like the onl…

> Making up jobs to keep people employed isn't a viable solution to me. It’s going to sound naive and stupid, but I think it somehow works. There are millions of jobs here in Japan that exist for the sake of existing. Government knows, people know, workers know as well. But everyone understands that the flipside also sucks. Sure, we can say we should optimize and people need to re-learn and etc and etc. But that’s no…

On the other hand the Japanese economy has been quite stagnant since 1990, and the yen is right now on a downwards spiral, so I don't think it is such a good solution.

And as a gaijin living in Japan, I usually get extremely pissed off at the extreme inefficiency of Japanese companies, things that in any other country would take one month here take 5 years.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#688

Post by _heimdall »

seinvak wrote: post #250
1970-01-01 wrote: post #2

AI is just the disguise. It's the economy, just like it is in every recession.

AI is definitely a solid reason. Even a 10% increase in developer efficiency translates to roughly 9% fewer workers needed to do the same job. For AI to be cost effective, it must reduce headcount.

Jevon's Paradox will show up too though. When employees get more efficient companies just demand more of them.

You really have to be in "the room where it happens" to know the motivations behind any one layoff.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#689

Post by tombert »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #2

AI is just the disguise. It's the economy, just like it is in every recession.

I think AI is the scapegoat for the massive overhiring that happened in 2021 and 2022. These corporations kept thinking that the nearly-interest-free loans were going to keep on going forever, and since no one really knows how to grow a business they spent the money the only way they know how: hiring more people. It didn't really matter if they were filling jobs that were "necessary", just as long as they were filled.

Now, this is extremely short-sighted and frankly it makes me question the intelligence of these BigCos' executives, because unless they're utterly incompetent at this whole "business" and "living on the planet earth" thing they should have realized that the economy fluctuates and this infinite free money wouldn't last.

Now that AI is around, these companies finally have a way to do these layoffs while not looking quite as idiotic.

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