Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000 • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#81

Post by roflyear » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

jesuscript wrote: post #62

roflyear wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon can't horde the employees, but I would expect them to be more responsible than save up for massive layoffs.

Amazon of all companies, a Covid sweetheart, is just devilish. I have no words for this one honestly. Watch what a mega profitable company does during a recession and you’ll know everything you need to know. They are not good to workers, from top to the warehouse bottom. I believe every last story about the warehouse workers, all the way to the PIP nonsense.

Responsibility and sustainability, I think, only happens on the small scale. It is too hard for a company like Amazon to be responsible, so rather than them being evil, it's just... easier to do other things. Path of least resistance.

I think there are large corps that do this well... Publix is employee-owned, and they have never had a layoff in nearing 100 years... (they were founded in 1930, so weathered every major modern economic disaster)

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#82

Post by Sakos » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

simplotek wrote: post #73

Sakos wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why they axed Alexa. It doesn't make any sense to me in the context of the rest of their business.

> I still don't understand why they axed Alexa. Alexa was described as "a colossal failure" which lost 10 billion dollars last year alone. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-co...

I don't really understand how that division could rack up $10 billion in losses in a single year either.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#83

Post by jacobsenscott » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

simplotek wrote: post #78

jacobsenscott wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon's economy has only improved in the last 10 years. These firings are coordinated across large tech companies to reduce salaries and benefits, make employees work longer hours, and in general shift the power away from employees and back to the executives.

> Amazon's economy has only improved in the last 10 years. This is a very ignorant take. In 2022 Amazon became the first company ever to lose $1trilion market value. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-09/amazon-hi... In concrete terms, Amazon's stock prices tanked over 50% in less than a year. This is not the hallmark of a healthy company. > These firings are coordinated across large tech companies to re…

Amazon's stock price rises and falls with the rest of the market. It does not indicate "corporate health". There's no conspiracy theory here - tech companies have a history of colluding to suppress wages. Even if there's no collusion here it is easy for executives to recognize an opportunity to cut wages and employee power and they'll all jump on it.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#84

Post by noodle » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

moonchrome wrote: post #65

noodle wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were making record profits, they would be looking to expand their profitable divisions, would they not? They would likely not lay people off, but reorganize internally to move resources away from failing areas and into the clearly thriving, very profitable areas; or start something completely new. Hiring one good employee is expensive and difficult.

I'm sure the warehouse workers can easily be retrained to work on AWS. There's even data warehousing which would be a natural transition.

The article is about corporate staff, not warehouse workers.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#85

Post by O1111OOO » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

honestduane wrote: post #26

This is just corporate gaslighting at this point; There is no legitimate reason so many very profitable tech companies need to fire so many when we are not even in a recession according to the United States Government and the treasury and the banks, and its not like they are not making record profits. They cant say "we are making record profits" and in the same breath say "we need to fire people to survive" that's no…

> This is just corporate gaslighting at this point ..[sip].. They cant say "we are making record profits" and in the same breath say "we need to fire people to survive" that's not how that works. Pick one.

This might be a bit harsh in relation to Amazon.

I saw a comment on another site mentioning total workforce. A quick look at Amazon's Wikipedia page reveals that they employ 1,544,000 as of September 2022. Is 18,000 really that much?

It's like getting rid of 1 person in an office of 100.

There's also the issue of market forces. On March/2022 their stock price was around $164. It was $143 on August/2022 and it's been plummeting since then. Currently at $83.

I also followed a source link on Wikipedia that led me to this Sept/2020 article: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/amazon-to-hire-100-000-in-u... : Amazon to Hire 100,000 in U.S. and Canada. This was during Covid's initial height. I think some people criticized them for this too.

I'm of the position that, in this case, Amazon really has very little choice. These 18,000 might really be excessive. They don't come across as a company that tries to get by with a skeleton crew. They constantly overload to ensure smooth operations.

They are also one of the few "Tech" firms where you can talk to real people at a moment's notice - which is part of this overloading for smooth operations philosophy.

Re: Amazon has raised the number of jobs it plans to cut 18,000

#86

Post by jackcviers3 » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 10:29 PM UTC

jacobsenscott wrote: post #53

throwawayxy1 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would any company fire anybody if they are generating money for them?

To drive down wages. All tech companies firing thousands of people at the same time is a simple way to do this. Hire back in a year at much reduced salaries and benefits.

I cynically suspect this to be the case. As soon as one does it; the others have to follow to have any hope of controlling the tech salary bubble. They Don have to collude, just watch and match percentages.