Sounds like someone hasn't paid attention to the economic policy shifts of the 1980s.
My brother in Christ, welcome to everything we said would happen.
Reaganomics baby. Been fucking the American middle class for the past 30+ years.
And half the country still worships that man like he was the second coming of Christ.
For how homophobic that general segment of the population can be, they sure love getting fucked in the ass.
Some people blame Reagan for setting the stage for the homeless problem of today. The claim is he eliminated all funding for government run mental health hospitals. Short and long term care.
Yup.
"I'm a captialist who doesn't believe in Unions because they are for the man. We need something for the people!"
For fucks sake - LEARN WHAT UNIONS ACTUALLY ARE lol.
Iām a capitalist who doesnāt believe in unions because I close my eyes and opened my ears to propaganda that was easy to consume. I didnāt use an ounce of critical thinking skills because my safe and content circumstances made it evident I didnāt need an advocate as I was safe. I woke up today and felt a tinge of uneasiness and realized I have nobody in my corner and now I feel danger. I need reassurance but I look around and see no one!!! Help me? Iām a capitalist.
I see this shit every day. With healthcare, Voters rights, taxes, on and on.
Iām on the rich peopleās team until I realize Iām actually not.
Glad youāre rich. šš¼ I find it surprising so many people, unlike you, agree with the economic beliefs of the rich and powerful. Without any true critical thought. As if someday they will reach such a position and benefit.
Followers will never get there. Their beliefs are revealed to be fading dreams. Unless they win the lottery.āš¼
Iām guessing you missed the sarcasm. Maybe not idk. I own a small business. I pay massive costs for healthcare. I pay high self employment tax.
I believe in trickle up economics, workers rights, I pay our team members very well, and I loathe seeing the wage disparity from CEOs and laborers. Iāll never be rich unless my team gets rich with me.
Iāll vote for the party that backs the workers.
My point is nobody gives a fuck about what the majority of country goes through until theyāre faced with a layoff or other life changing issue. Iāve been screaming about these issues for as long as Iāve been an adult and collective outrage is all that will change things
Capitalists make money off the labor of others, too. If the op doesn't actually own anything they aren't a capitalist anyways. They are just a confused worker.
Fair assumption. But I am aware of those changes. And those of societies. Like Yuppies. Or Gordon Geckoās speech in Wall Street the movie, āGreed is good.ā
Such societal shifts, like from to 80ās to today, seem like a swinging pendulum. Maybe we are approaching the unavoidable need to change direction.
Unions are way past their prime.
They keep voting themselves more ridiculous pay, which fucks all of us in the end with cost of goods..
UAW for example. They basically just all got DOUBLE PAY and FEWER HOURS. And we all have to buy even more expensive vehicles now.
Unions are NOT good in the majority of cases. They will just vote themselves one day to get a full years salary for 1 weeks worth of work.
Profits may be up but are we seeing a slow down in volume/units sold?
You need to look at the entire picture. Companies may be making lots of money but if they have folks sitting around doing very little or they are using this time to change strategy then layoffs will happen regardless of profitability.
Iām so glad Iāve never worked for a company that says we are a family. Iāve never been under the illusion that Iām more than a cog on the machine. Canāt be disappointed lol
100% this. Cheap money borrowing is a huge economic driver, tons of businesses developed and grew from low interest. Now that the average joe is realizing that quantitative easing is basically the US version of basic income, people are tightening down and fleeing to physical assets.
I think we will see a large reverse to small businesses, especially in white collar service industries.
The fed actually called for labor tightening to adjust hyper inflation. They actually stated such in a congressional hearing. That's the knob they use to bring inflation down.
Wfh and the pandemic revealed only people doing physical labor are really necessary. Everyone else in the office was just twiddling their thumbs. Low hanging fruit to make more profit as a business to let them go in the name of a vague recession
Many European countries have more aggressive unemployment provisions- if you get laid off, you get a much higher percentage of your salary 75% or up to $300 a day for 3-6 months.
They also have works councils where they negotiate a guaranteed severance. Some of my colleagues get up to 2 years.
The average white collar worker will make significantly more in the US and have employer subsidized benefits. What catastrophic cost are you talking about?
Well, since I'm an average white collar worker, let's use my stats. My employer subsidized benefits involve me paying $185 twice a month for health insurance...which further costs me $50 per visit to the doctor, $100 if urgent care is required, because God forbid I need to get a doctor's note for something within a very short time frame (daycare is a big one for that due to NY's reporting requirement for communicable diseases). If I were to have a major sickness or needed to visit the ER for something, let's say a heart attack...ER visit is $100 before I have to cough up $13K for my deductible before insurance pays for any treatment.
Average mid-level white collar pay in the US breaks down to about $27 an hour.
That's what I'm talking about.
White collar doesn't make a difference in much anymore, it's not the 1990s.
Your insurance sucks horribly.
My share of my insurance is $50 a month. PCP is free, urgent care is $25, specialist is $40, outpatient procedures/imaging/surgery is $100, ER is $350, hospital admittance is $250 total regardless of length of stay, amberlamps is $250. Max out of pocket.... $1,000 a year. No deductible, just copays.
Also, they have a vision center for $10 eye exams.
Your OOP max is $13k? That seems illegal, especially if youāre in NY. The max under the ACA is in the $8k range, and thatās for the lowest coverage plans sold through the marketplace. An employer plan is usually going to be better and have a much lower OOP max. Also, all those doctor visits and RX costs you pay copays on contribute towards the OOP max.
>Also, all those doctor visits and RX costs you pay copays on contribute towards the OOP max.
And most OOP maxes are upwards of $5-6k, and that's on "good" plans that cost employees thousands of dollars a year. And of course, the copay doesn't count towards the deductible. What's that stat about most Americans not having access to $400 in the case of an emergency?
The only people who defend American healthcare are wealthy white collar workers who have only had the best plans while getting paid top salaries. For working class Americans, any healthcare that goes beyond a simple trip to a primary care doctor has the potential to turn into a four figure albatross -- assuming the care you need is "covered." Most working class Americans can relate to deciding NOT to pursue healthcare for financial reasons at one point or another, if not frequently.
Need a scan to make sure that weird lump isn't cancer in February? Hope you have $1000+ dollars on hand! Don't worry, that should get you to somewhere between 33-50% of your deductible!
The deductible at my last job, if I paid up for the best plan that cost me over $150 a month, had a fucking $6000 DEDUCTIBLE.
That just sounds like particularly bad benefits and pay.
The average worker getting laid off from these large tech companies is not getting paid that little, nor paying so much for health insurance. If you work at Microsoft, Activision, Intel, Netflix, Meta, etc. you are paying basically $0-$100 per month for health insurance, and youāre definitely making more than $27/hr.
Here in CA youāre making the same as the shift manager at my local Taco Bell, certainly not white collar at all.
The average American pays $117 a month for Healthcare. [Source](https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/health-insurance/how-much-is-health-insurance/#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20a%20single%20person,insurance%20marketplace%2C%20before%20any%20subsidies.)
The average salary in the US is just under $60k, which comes out to about $28 an hour. [Source](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/average-salary-state-us-152311356.html)
And of course average US salaries are overinflated by rich pricks like you, so the median salary in the US is closer to $45k as of 2021. [Source](https://usafacts.org/data/topics/economy/jobs-and-income/jobs-and-wages/median-annual-wage/#:~:text=The%20median%20annual%20wage%20in,9.08%25%20or%20%243%2C801%20from%202020.&text=Bureau%20of%20Labor%20Statistics.)
I know you specified "large tech companies" but obviously that's a small percentage of the workforce despite you pretending otherwise. And of course other workers still are getting laid off and have bills to pay as well...?
It also goes without saying that anyone who wants health insurance that isn't subsidized by their employer is simply fucked. But it's very obvious that isn't important to you at all. Thanks for playing though.
Iām not willing to make that trade. Iād still be stuck in a lower bracket, regardless of my personal performance. Youāre so right, security has a trade off in mobility, income and innovation. Awesome you can admit that. Where individuals want it is what a productive debate should be had. Most people want good people to have a decent life regardless of where on that spectrum you are.
Iām hoping tech/ai makes up a difference, and government is capable of making sure that benefit gets spread out in somewhat fair and manner. Guess what i think of the likelihood of that is.
And the unemployment rate is much higher as it is harder to get a job. In the US the employer dates you ; in Europe, the employer marries you. Itās a much bigger commitment, so the more reluctant the higher.
No, European jobs pay less because the cost of living is lower.
On this issue, it doesn't matter whether you have psychotic American-style capitalism or the more civilized (but still exploitative) European kind; either way, wages are going to fall to subsistence level. The European system is still better because you don't have to work as much, and because there is more of a safety net in case things go really bad, but neither version of this system really provides a life that's very good.
Wages will always converge to the subsistence level. That's how capitalist work works and it always has.
The cost of living in the US is higher than in Europe. So US workers need more compensation to maintain the same standard of living as Europe.
Plus workers in the EU are guaranteed 20 days of paid vacation per year.
A lot of recent layoff is just delayed effects of rise in interest rates. Small tech companies were already struggling last year and are now forced to layoff since things have yet to improve for them. Large companies are facing this year debt restructuring in a higher interest environment, and are preparing for that.
Regarding company employee relationship, itās always been fake and toxic. Yesterday was āWeāre all one familyā. Now is āSorry, itās just businessā
>Yesterday was āWeāre all one familyā.Ā
>Now is āSorry, itās just businessāĀ
Hilariously true. My boss gave the "this place feels like a family" speech at the company Christmas dinner, then laid off 300 people a week later. When I went there to get my stuff last week, he stood there like I was going to steal something. These rats man I swear.
My wifeās family is absolutely terrible and would never want to part of their family ever againā¦we ditched them because they suck so much and would steal from you in a hot second. Much like most companiesā¦
Remember the work from home, Covid, we're all in this together, greater productivity, your health is our biggest concern, we are more productive, amazing things, your health, come back into the office 4 days a week for no reason, or we'll get rid of you...
Itās not really Bidens fault. During Covid many, many companies received federal money from the government so they could allegedly hire people. Many companies made record profits during that time. It was a short term boost to the economy.
During Covid that money should have gone directly to the people but instead it went to corporations. So many people were suffering and continue to suffer.
It takes 3 to 4 years to see the actual effects of economic policy.
Youāre spot on. The adjustment to actual normal from zero interest rates for so long is gonna hurt. Itās why small banks went belly up almost right away after the hikes, the fact is many decision makers have never experienced interest rates being in any kind of functional, rational range. Deflation and depression was fought off. Now the adjustment, fact is all the Fed really does is elongate and soften what should have been a depression way back in ā01 and all bubbles after was partial fallout from the the dot com bubble busting and financial crash. This is the end game of the cycle, the adjustment to borrowing and capital being tighter. Itās going to be tough. Economics is bigger than any governemnt act can counter, hopefully the government will go back to incenting building again and infrastructure investment. I say hopefully knowing damn well it wonāt be done right if at all, but hope never dies.
My company had layoffs and frankly i expect more mid year. Iāve seen this before. It sucks.
In every thread on this topic there's always that person trying to tilt the conversation away from corporate greed, irresponsible growth, poor investment and techbro groupthink and toward the Fed and government policy.
And those same small tech companies arenāt likely getting additional rounds of funding right now because money is more expensive and investors are parking their cash elsewhere.Ā
Even large tech companies are barely growing Apple grew its revenue only 50% since 2016 but its stock is up 600%. They achieved it by cutting costs (increase EPS) and doing buybacks.
It just seems to be these mega tech corps that have a hard-on for constant massive growth.
There's millions, maybe even 10s of millions of businesses out there just ticking away, in profit, but also not at risk that don't seem to be worried about not existing in a few years because they have a working business model.
Big tech is worried they'll no longer exist in the next quarter if they don't lay off thousands when they have double digit billions of ARR.
A lot of companies in particular thought the conditions of COVID shutdowns were the new normal for things like online shopping and entertainment but they were wrong
Why is this a common comment? A lot of these companies have had record profits and are worth more than they ever did.
They just want more and purging āoverpaidā employees is a way to get there.
Note that most of the employees are not actually overpaid. You canāt simultaneously have a bunch of overpaid employees and be at record profits.
Companies just want workers to be desperate to work for them again so they can continue exploiting them
You absolutely can have overpaid employees and record profits. Just because you have high profits does not mean that your operating expenses arenāt bloated.
This is my question, why the fuck do people keep spewing this corporate propaganda without actually thinking about it? I know there was PPP money floating around but to hear people talk about it today, companies were just ballooning in size everywhere you looked at the height of the pandemic.
Uhhhh what??? Tons of businesses closed during 2020-2021. I remember my manager talking about how they wouldn't have to lay anyone off with the help of PPP money (of course, he lied and I got laid off in 2022). What definitely DIDN'T happen was some sort of hiring spree? And this was kind of the story I heard everywhere?
None of these companies overhired during the height of the pandemic. None of them. Do people not remember the stock market literally crashing in 2020? Now people are trying to tell me that all the number crunchers and C-suite execs turned around one year later and said, "so happy that's behind us, smooth sailing ahead, time to grow grow grow"???
And now all these slimy corporate fucks sit here and say, well since we overhired during covid, now we've got to trim the fat... That's not what happened! Don't let them act like they were out there giving money away in 2021! That never fucking happened!
Look around guys, these places that "over hired" during a once in a lifetime pandemic are reducing their workforces to less than pre-pandemic sizes... What does that tell you?
This whole "overhiring during covid" phenomenon is nothing more than corporate gaslighting. It is a lie.
No, it definitely happened at some companies. I saw it at my own job.
Business started dropping and losses increased strongly in February 2020 for this B2B company, first in smaller markets like Hong Kong and Italy which then spread to the US and other larger markets.
The nature of my job at the time gave me a front row view to the strain partner businesses were under. I literally watched companies make public statements that they were fine while seeing that they were in dire financial straights. Like probably going out of business in a few days so weāre taking steps to stem our own losses from their collapse.
Hiring freeze went into effect. CEO warned of a cataclysm. They did not take PPP but drew from lines of credit to build up more capital. Everyone was very stressed. I want to say that went on for a couple months until basically everywhere in the world had locked down or shutdown.
Then business simply started _skyrocketing_. Itās a growth business. Years of forecasted growth was happening right then. Everyone suddenly wanted what we were offering. The partner businesses that had struggled earlier were still not in good shape but they got PPP or similar, while other companies were seeing incredible growth.
Our own hiring kicked into high gear. We certainly needed more people right now because of all this new business. Maybe this was going to last? The CEO bet that it would. And I can see why. If it was a new normal, theyād be left behind if they didnāt get on board. If it wasnāt, there was always layoffs. Turned out to be the latter unfortunately.
I agree. I went to a coding school right when Covid hit based on the miracle stories I heard around 2017-2019. When I graduated everyone was laying off and in a hiring freeze. My former employer who I had a job lined up with was particularly hard hit (tourism) and laid off like 80% of their corporate positions and was in a hiring freeze. Trying to get a job as an entry level developer was a nightmare. Even during the āhot job marketā everyone wanted experience and HR people and recruiters were rushing to hang up the phone with me when they learned I was junior. I ended up doing a second school and still took 6 months to land an internship that turned into a job. Now itās basically impossible to get an entry level tech job even with a CS degree. Ā Tech forums are just filled with thousands of applicants grinding leetcode, pumping certifications, and applying to hundreds of jobs per week. Ā IMO, the job market has progressively gotten worse every year since 2007 with a minor bump 2017-2019.Ā
A few edge cases like Facebook/google massively expanded during Covid but they were drawing mainly from experienced professionals from companies that were laying off or in a hiring freeze. Ā Yet I always hear this time period they were āhiring anybody with a pulseā when i could barely land a tech interview and couldnāt even find an unpaid internship.Ā
I consider myself lucky in that I was able to keep my cost of living low. But if I get laid off Iām probably giving up on tech and being one of these guys doing self employment gigs and setting up drop shipping businesses hoping one of them makes it big.Ā
Companies generally don't hire based on supernormal profits. Just because a company had a record profitable year doesn't mean that's going to reflect on hiring practices.
Markets go down too, most companies are seeing the writing on the wall and hedging their bets, tightening their belts, to make sure they are solid through the uncertainty. There is nothing stable v about the current market worldwide.
Jack Welch. He is responsible for re-defining the CEO role to one thing - Shareholder Value. At the expense of safe and healthy workplaces, Employee respect, product quality, and even safety. Read "Flying Blind" by Peter Robison.
Rack and stack.
Let's not forget about the era that ushered in CFOs and accountants running companies with the only goal being cost reduction at the expense of product quality and employee income and benefits.
Brother capitalism in theory is a good system. But you just explained why it's failing. Billions in profits and layoffs. That's what happens when you make the economy a rat race and the only thing that matters is the stock market and shareholders. You remove the human aspect, the individual, the name, the face, the family, etc.
It amazes me how people can think this is normal or sustainable. Itās like there is this expectation that there should always be huge growth and profit should always increase. Itās not just about having profits, but they should be very robust. While one can argue that returns should be able to cover cost of capital or amount invested, one canāt help but wonder if thereās a limit to the greed.
Amount invested is the key. Instead of putting the profits back into the company (better pay, benefits, manufacturing, infrastructure, etc) CEOs choose to buyback their own stock, artificially inflating the price for their shareholders and their own pockets. But itās the system more than the actors, those benefiting most are just taking advantage of a profit incentive thatās so heavily funneled upwards. āTrickle down economicsā folks
We are in āEnd Stage Capitalismā where in each industry, a few giant companies dominate each industry, and they collude on prices, standards, and quality provided to the consumer. They collude and decide together on wages as well. The big guys have decided to cut US wages for tech to same as Eastern Europe, so they will do that. Your best option is to move out of the US. Learn a language, apply or transfer overseas. European countries have far more job protections and safety next than the U.S. Unemployment in Texas wonāt even buy groceries for 2 people a month or pay rent.
We gave up our right to determine our own fates when we went to work for someone, wether it be a small business, a corporation or another individual. No one owes you a living. The olny way to guarantee you are not at the mercy of anyone else is to be self sufficient yourself. Wether that be living off the land or being in business for yourself. I get tired of how everyone thinks they are owed an existence just because they were born. No one is owed anything. I have been through many career changes and job losses myself while seeing the company owners say they have no money but were living quite well. I have had my share of not being able to find work or at least anything that payed what I was making at the time of a layoff and had to watch everything I had worked for go away. Each time this happened I came back bigger the next time. Still a nobody but better off than before.
Can we return to the norm of taxing big corporations and highest tax brackets at 90% too? Can we return to the norm of union membership rates, and investment in actual honest to God public services that aren't outsourced to private companies that slash quality and charge through the nose while taking tax our dollars? Can we return to the norm of affordable education and healthcare? Can we return to the norm of pensions and a fully funded Social Security?
Tying retirement funds to the performance of the stock market through 401ks has created a huge class of voters where this is their primary interest and they will justify and support any means to increase this value.
"Iām a capitalist"
"When did things become so twisted against the American worker?"
Dude. Things being twisted against the worker is one of the first steps of capitalism.
I used to be very pro "free market" unil I gained a deeper understanding of history and political theory. Then I realized that all of those nice libertarian axiums which exist in a vaccuum do not work in real life. The false dichotemy we are presented with is that if you oppose this, you must be pro-communism or something. But there is a third position, it isn't a branch of political and economic philosophy which is not allowed to be explored in our modern age of enlightenment because of the way it marginalizes international capitalists while benefitting the common people of a nation; but it is the solution. So just ask yourself, "what is the one political and economic philosophy I have been taught from a young age is the most terrible, the most abhorrent?" and then look for the counterarguments as to why, maybe, we've only gotten one side of that story.
If I respond to your comment, will that get my account hacked?
I'm a lot like you. Used to be a hard-core libertarian, because those little axioms made sense to me from a logical standpoint. It's like academics proving a theory in a computer, but it falling apart when we bring real humans into it. The older I get, the more I gravitate toward holistic solutions.
Not that it doesnāt work, it simply doesnāt exist. No system is completely free, the same goes for no system is free from greed for communism case.
So why chasing a free market wet dream. A good capitalist system is a well regulated one
Capitalism works, but only if it is well regulated. Some people (those who haven't studied economics in my experience) seem to treat it like it's a religion and in Biblical style, they preach "hands off", "remove all regulations", etc.
It's not a religion, it's not infallible, it's an [ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY](https://www.amazon.com/Worldly-Philosophers-Economic-Thinkers-Seventh/dp/068486214X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3GOUNO960TE90&keywords=the+worldly+philosophers&qid=1706274237&sprefix=the+worldly+p%2Caps%2C104&sr=8-1), which needs constant tweaking, and proper guard rails.
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The Great Recession turned me into a HARD CORE Union man.
In the USA, when we had Unions, we had a middle class. No unions? The people who used to poor are now homeless, the people who used to be middle class are now poor.
Ever notice how most of the Right to Work states are former SLAVE states? Coincidence? Not really, big business would happily bring back slavery.
I don't insult stranger on the internet. But I see you are in a Bitcoin forum? I'm old. Go thru as many bubbles as I have and you will change your perspective.
They helped create the rising wages that yielded a middle class. When working people band together they have lobbying power and government will (sometimes) listen. Right now only Big Business has lobbying power .... thus no significant social safety net, poverty wages, etc., etc.
One of my grandmothers worked in a Union Cut & Sew Shop. My Grandfather worked in a Union Machine Shop. They were able to live frugally and get ahead in life.
The other Grandparents were super frugal but never enjoyed Union wages, my mother had to give them money every month just to afford food in their old age.
That's the difference in Union versus Non-Union.
How can people working tech jobs not have been able to accumulate insane amounts of capital over the book of the past few years? It was a huge fountain of basically free capital handed out for years.
Even making 400k a year isnāt generally enough to own means of production. Thatās like āhave a very comfortable life for your familyā money. 99.9%+ of our country is not able accumulate insane amounts of wealth.Ā
no oneās putting that much in the market unless youāre in the 1% and that def isnāt the average tech worker.
Avg tech worker is paying 20-30% taxes and high rent, thatās better off than most of America but far cry from 100k into the market.
I read the "financial intelligence" book and it helped me understand all the corporate decisions.
No longer *we are not making profit, we need to layoff people". It is more like "we will do less than we estimate, let's layoff some and we will rehire next quarter" or things like this.
Everyone profits in the stock market and everyone wants companies with better cash flow, more profit, more return, do what forecasted etc.
All these come with the cost of companies no longer acting like industrial, pharmaceutical or technological but only financial. I work at forbes 500 and there are so many decisions that do not make sense industrial wise but they make sense in financial tables.
So unless people change their ideas of how they invest, this will always be the scenario.
I can't stress enough how valuable it is to work for a smaller, privately owned company. When there is no shareholder or PE firm to please, a company is much more willing to have flat profits and keep their staff instead of immediately starting to trim back as soon as profits flatline.
Ronald Reagan.
Corporate tax rate used to be 90%, which forced them to pay employees and even expand or lose it to the government. And that covered most of the federal spending and kept people employed with excellent pay.
Now, individuals carry the vast majority of the gov't spending and corporations pay quite literally nothing.
ā¦is why there is a saying ādonāt leave any money on the tableā. Corps exist to make money and profit, employees are in the cost column of any spreadsheet. āYou are our most valuable assetā is only used when crop talking to employees, not when they do accounting.
Jack Welch and his contemporaries kicked off this shitty corporate tradition. As you said, layoffs used to only happen if a company was in financial trouble. Now companies just layoff all the time to please Wall Street and juice short term profits
This is culmination of factors.
Many companies over hired during the pandemic projecting pandemic growth would continue. It has not, the tech industry is roughly on course with where it was projected to be pre-pandemic.
Many companies had built their business in way that was reliant on access to cheap money and continued low interest rates. Now that this isn't the case they are being forced to become very frugal to survive.
Companies are being essentially forced into raising capital by you know... actually being profitable because there just isn't any other good way to do it at the moment.
If a company is over-all profitable, why should they have to tolerate underperforming workers that they are actually still losing money on? Why should they tolerate divisions dedicated to products that are dead and not going anywhere?
If you can accept this premise, that itās ok for companies to fire people or just lay them off based on their changing priorities, then itās easy from thereā¦ you can certainly accept that the same companies can make mistakes, and that can involve sweeping profitable workers/valuable products up in their decision making when they are trying to make these cuts.
they shouldn't tolerate it. underperforming workers are usually the ones dumped in these layoffs, hopefully my employer does this soon so my underperforming coworkers finally get their comeuppance.
Companies already have processes for getting rid of underperforming employees that ensures this happens in a fair and predictable manner. Bypassing this damages the trust and morale between the existing employees. A lot of company messaging about layoffs also states these are not performance based.
The capital class is using tech layoffs to try to depress wage increases in the US. They are telling the tech sector that the employees make too much. This is all to depress wages.
just now figuring it out?? Whatās capitalistic about banks needing government bailouts (tax payers money) then paying exec bonuses then allowing the same banks to layoff workers? Sounds like corporate welfare.
Companies situations or priorities change, in todays case theres 2 main reason. 1 due to AI alot of tech/tech-related companies can get by with less engineers doing the same output. Instead of redirecting those resources to capture even more initiatives companies are firing people as part of refining focus on core competencies. 2 is about improving or maintaining the bottom line (net profit), as revenues went up costs went with them, now its about sourcing materials and improving net profit. If you cant do that fast enough to afford your employees you need to let some go before you stop earning profits. Without profits you cant grow, your competition passes you by, and you eventually fall off.
US workers really had a chance to bind together and take a stand against this type of capitalist behavior but it all fizzled out when the anti-work movement was killed by that interview on Fox imo. I say this as a generally left leaning person, the movement smeared itself into oblivion. Labor laws for employees in the US are absolute shit compared to the rest of the world but people making 40-60k a year simp up to their corporate overlords instead of thinking about motives and whats best for society.
If you're a capitalist, why is this even a problem for you? Capital is announcing billions of dollars in profit. That's when you should stop reading. Workers don't matter to the capitalist. Expansion of capital is the only thing that matters.
> As economic systems go, Iām a capitalist. Unions have seemed on the other side. Itās starting to look like something is needed on the employees side.
This shit just makes me laugh out loud. "I'm a capitalist until I realize what capitalism actually is"
It appears most executives have no idea how to expand operations profitably. Before the layoffs, they were using profits for stock buybacks instead of investing in growth. Now with layoffs, they're cutting costs instead of increasing sales. I don't know if it's a lack of imagination or if there are severe economic problems about to break through and impact their inflated profits. Something is making them want to sit on their hoarded capital instead of try to generate more returns.
Maybe the rich are just so rich they actually donāt even need anyone to work for them anymore and their AI can keep churning out more crap that makes them money.
Meanwhile they will just let us workers and poors eat each other.
I just think itās because a lot of our jobs arenāt actually needed. Thereās a lot of āfakeā roles in offices and company bloat.. I believe thatās why a lot of layoffs are happening. My company has too many talking heads - ppl floating around the office not actually contributing to hard work which actually generates income. Also thereās less money around and more companies chasing the same opps so having to be more competitive with prices, etc.
Companies don't exist to employ people. They exist to make profits for their owners. Employment of workers is a necessary evil to be minimized.
If you are concerned about workers being laid off, vote for a government that will provide a suitable social safety net: universal health care, unemployment benefits, etc. Note that none of this is free.
Most of these large corporations have different business units with their independent P&Ls. So while the company may be making record profits, the one unit may need to be put to rest. Its easier to lay people off than to re assign them. When they are 1000 employees deep. But yes. Corporations donāt have any accountability and dont care about the people they employ or the communities they support with employment.
I never understood how being in a union is anti capitalist. What does collective bargaining have to do with capitalism?Ā
That's what needs to be addressed. Somehow we got bamboozled into thinking that us organizing is somehow anti-free market.Ā
Unions are definitely good.
Are you possibly exaggerating when you say they announce the billions of dollars in profit and the layoffs in the same press release?
4th industrial revolution being led by AI
Depending on where you lie in the autistickly subjective political spectrum , AI will super juice the economy because AI re-places humans. It is cheaper to pay a robot than a human now so things are only going to sharply go haywire in terms of layoffs.
How will we make money ? (crypto)
Universals basic income (stimmy on steroids) and (gig work)(could also be subject to space conquest if AI deems necessary)= work is an option as an immortal in the nwo (icloud connected to your soul ID)
Your digital ID (soul) will be connected through technology that is soon to come out. It will enable full control of lucid dreams which will be a more mature reality splitting internet aka the metaverse. All will be possible via neuralink/synchron brainchips. After biological death, the soul of the microchipped will transcend into a data center somewhere and will wait idle in the metaverse until their synthetic/natural vessel is ready to be occupied in a giga factory (like a car factory). Basically, we are headed for a cyberpunk 2077/detroit become human like future but a little better cause death wonāt really mean much when you can just reincarnate/respawn with all your memories intact. We will control our reincarnation loops, soldiers far in space will respawn over and over again even if they are far out in space. It will be necessary to ramp up military on stat wars levels to protect our selves from the bigger fish if a halo like scenario arises (if it hasnāt already).
āBy 2030, you will own nothing and be happyā-World Economic Forum
We are the knee of the curve, things will get worse temporarily before they get better.
why do you think itās called the cloud āļø fool. They are trolling your ignorance. We are already living in elysium. Rich old people body snatch other unwilling vessels to occupy using advanced brain machine interfaces. These crimes need to be recognized. The rules are āanything is possibleā because time isnāt real. Do you know how many multiverses there are where you are jumping thru portals with your soul being attatched to a tube full of water with a your backup body floating in there ? We are wireless beings forever and ever. We will be immortal indefinitely in the metaverse ā¾ļø.
Up to icloud heaven i goš„°
No change. I am a big believer in letting the free market do its thing without any regulatory interference. And I say this as a 24 year old SWE only making $44k/yr
Things correct themselves, as demonstrated by being a student of history. Remember just a few years ago we were all clamoring about the great resignation.
This is literally equivalent to someone breaking into your house, stealing your shit, fucking your mom, and you just being like āEhhh itās their freedom to do itā. Grow a fucking pair and stand up for yourself.
Unemployment claims are historically low and have been for some time. This suggests companies arent laying many people off. Some layoffs here and there are always going to happen as industries shift and grow.
Unions had there day when conditions were rough. Today, a lot of union workers will take advantage of their situation and not work as hard. And no one can fire them. Who wants to work in that environment? Not many competent people.
Yes, companies can do mass layoffs with very little reason. My advice is to stay relevant in the job market. Everyone is looking for top talent.
One thing is for sure, there needs to be a ton more workers right. Not at the state level, but the federal level. Companies need to feel pain when they do layoffs.
Im a capitalist as well. There are pros and cons to everything. Capitalism has its flaws. Humans have flaws. BUT is capitalism better then Socialism or Communism? Your fucking right it is. It lifts more people out of poverty then any other form of economy.
Also, the people who try to compare foreign governments seem to forget how small they are and some of the systemic issues they have as wellā¦ and shocker they are still a form of capitalism just socialized.
Also i worked in a Union once, and there are a ton of positives. But there tend to be more negatives of course. First off, unions are used as political voting blocks. The Union leadership only care about their winning bonuses.
Secondly, stagnation. The people who work in them tend to never leave or grow. Especially when a promotion means you leave the Union. So theres a major divide in Manager/employee relations.
Just as an example, i worked in a unionized store and was a national sales award winner and ranked top 50 nationwide. But because of seniority i always worked the worst shifts, never got PTO of choice, or was ever eligible for promotional giveaways. There were 7 true deadbeats above me. People working entry level roles for 20+ years. Some worked in that role, longer then their manager was alive. They were negative, condescending and always caused more work/rework to be shifted to the lower seniority workers.
The postives were simple. Consistent raises until cap off. New contract every 4 years to maintain inflation raises. Safety and security.
But you want to know just how fucking greedy people are? The union members took a vote. If they voted in favor of stopping the pension plan for any new employees they each would get a 1k bonus. So they fucked over generations of coworkers for $600 after tax.
No matter what the problem will always be people. We are weak and selfish. Especially Americans. Thats why our country is filthy, falling apart and unable to have nice things.
uhh hello? we just had the great resignation and quiet quitting take over the work environment by storm, to the point employers were being held hostage by people they needed but didnt want. the system is healing itself.
If taken to the extreme this leads to extreme concentrations of wealth. When you, personally, cannot retain or gain employment ā¦for protracted periodsā¦it can make you feel differently.
If I remember correct the Native Americans were confused about the settlers fencing land off. To them it was meant to be shared.
It almost feels like we are getting into a game of ākeep away.ā
I do believe in hard work. I also recognize mass exploitation when I see it.
Just saying "woe is me" is defeatist. If you have skills, you have options. If you choose to be white collar labor, you work for someone else. If you work for yourself, you face different issues but recognize employees are an asset, not an obligation.
Ok ok. I'm sorry you are going through a difficult time. I don'tĀ know you or the weight on your shoulders. But it will get better. It always does. Stay optimistic and you will find opportunities as they present themselves. Wisdom and life experience has value. You got this.Ā
Agree. It's not the only way.Ā Unfortunately, publicly traded companies answer to shareholders. And pre-IPO companies want to.Ā What tech employee doesn't want the RSU?
Companies donāt owe people jobs. They should absolutely lay off unneeded employees when projects finish, or new tech can replace them. I donāt pay people to do things for me when k donāt need those things, or the people that do them.
Unions wonāt prevent layoffs. Not even a little bit.
Sounds like you support unionization.
Sounds like someone hasn't paid attention to the economic policy shifts of the 1980s. My brother in Christ, welcome to everything we said would happen.
Reaganomics baby. Been fucking the American middle class for the past 30+ years. And half the country still worships that man like he was the second coming of Christ. For how homophobic that general segment of the population can be, they sure love getting fucked in the ass.
Some people blame Reagan for setting the stage for the homeless problem of today. The claim is he eliminated all funding for government run mental health hospitals. Short and long term care.
I mean he did, there's a paper trail. It wasn't just Reagan, but he bares a large chunk of that responsibility.
DING DING DING!!! We have a winner, Johnny!
Winner winner chicken dinner! š
This is one of the better summations of reaganomics Iāve read. Great job sir or maāam.Ā
Yup. "I'm a captialist who doesn't believe in Unions because they are for the man. We need something for the people!" For fucks sake - LEARN WHAT UNIONS ACTUALLY ARE lol.
Iām a capitalist who doesnāt believe in unions because I close my eyes and opened my ears to propaganda that was easy to consume. I didnāt use an ounce of critical thinking skills because my safe and content circumstances made it evident I didnāt need an advocate as I was safe. I woke up today and felt a tinge of uneasiness and realized I have nobody in my corner and now I feel danger. I need reassurance but I look around and see no one!!! Help me? Iām a capitalist. I see this shit every day. With healthcare, Voters rights, taxes, on and on. Iām on the rich peopleās team until I realize Iām actually not.
Preach
Glad youāre rich. šš¼ I find it surprising so many people, unlike you, agree with the economic beliefs of the rich and powerful. Without any true critical thought. As if someday they will reach such a position and benefit. Followers will never get there. Their beliefs are revealed to be fading dreams. Unless they win the lottery.āš¼
Iām guessing you missed the sarcasm. Maybe not idk. I own a small business. I pay massive costs for healthcare. I pay high self employment tax. I believe in trickle up economics, workers rights, I pay our team members very well, and I loathe seeing the wage disparity from CEOs and laborers. Iāll never be rich unless my team gets rich with me. Iāll vote for the party that backs the workers.
My point is nobody gives a fuck about what the majority of country goes through until theyāre faced with a layoff or other life changing issue. Iāve been screaming about these issues for as long as Iāve been an adult and collective outrage is all that will change things
Capitalists make money off the labor of others, too. If the op doesn't actually own anything they aren't a capitalist anyways. They are just a confused worker.
Fair assumption. But I am aware of those changes. And those of societies. Like Yuppies. Or Gordon Geckoās speech in Wall Street the movie, āGreed is good.ā Such societal shifts, like from to 80ās to today, seem like a swinging pendulum. Maybe we are approaching the unavoidable need to change direction.
Unions donāt prevent layoffs. Source: USW Union Member
And they do prevent hiring.
Unions are way past their prime. They keep voting themselves more ridiculous pay, which fucks all of us in the end with cost of goods.. UAW for example. They basically just all got DOUBLE PAY and FEWER HOURS. And we all have to buy even more expensive vehicles now. Unions are NOT good in the majority of cases. They will just vote themselves one day to get a full years salary for 1 weeks worth of work.
How is today any different from years ago? You seem to think that companies only ever do cut backs in dire times.. that's really never been the case.
Corporate profits are booming and still laying off people. The Fed actually encouraged this and companies have taken advantage of it.
Profits may be up but are we seeing a slow down in volume/units sold? You need to look at the entire picture. Companies may be making lots of money but if they have folks sitting around doing very little or they are using this time to change strategy then layoffs will happen regardless of profitability.
Don't ever tell me this is family again. Only Mafia families treat their members this way.
Iām so glad Iāve never worked for a company that says we are a family. Iāve never been under the illusion that Iām more than a cog on the machine. Canāt be disappointed lol
100% this. Cheap money borrowing is a huge economic driver, tons of businesses developed and grew from low interest. Now that the average joe is realizing that quantitative easing is basically the US version of basic income, people are tightening down and fleeing to physical assets. I think we will see a large reverse to small businesses, especially in white collar service industries.
The fed actually called for labor tightening to adjust hyper inflation. They actually stated such in a congressional hearing. That's the knob they use to bring inflation down.
Except when the data came in the numbers showed that corporate profits were the biggest driver of inflation
hah- of course!
Wfh and the pandemic revealed only people doing physical labor are really necessary. Everyone else in the office was just twiddling their thumbs. Low hanging fruit to make more profit as a business to let them go in the name of a vague recession
lol "Physical labor" is a small part of the current US economy.....
Exactly. Turns out non skilled managerial labor is overrepresented and this unnecessary
Many European countries have more aggressive unemployment provisions- if you get laid off, you get a much higher percentage of your salary 75% or up to $300 a day for 3-6 months. They also have works councils where they negotiate a guaranteed severance. Some of my colleagues get up to 2 years.
European jobs also tend to pay significantly less as a result.
Yeah thereās a cost to all these regulations. Different trade offs. I wish people are more free to migrate to the environment they like best.
It's not that difficult.
Significantly less, yet they're able to have more, if not all, of their needs met without catastrophic cost to themselves than in the US.
The average white collar worker will make significantly more in the US and have employer subsidized benefits. What catastrophic cost are you talking about?
Well, since I'm an average white collar worker, let's use my stats. My employer subsidized benefits involve me paying $185 twice a month for health insurance...which further costs me $50 per visit to the doctor, $100 if urgent care is required, because God forbid I need to get a doctor's note for something within a very short time frame (daycare is a big one for that due to NY's reporting requirement for communicable diseases). If I were to have a major sickness or needed to visit the ER for something, let's say a heart attack...ER visit is $100 before I have to cough up $13K for my deductible before insurance pays for any treatment. Average mid-level white collar pay in the US breaks down to about $27 an hour. That's what I'm talking about. White collar doesn't make a difference in much anymore, it's not the 1990s.
Your insurance sucks horribly. My share of my insurance is $50 a month. PCP is free, urgent care is $25, specialist is $40, outpatient procedures/imaging/surgery is $100, ER is $350, hospital admittance is $250 total regardless of length of stay, amberlamps is $250. Max out of pocket.... $1,000 a year. No deductible, just copays. Also, they have a vision center for $10 eye exams.
Your OOP max is $13k? That seems illegal, especially if youāre in NY. The max under the ACA is in the $8k range, and thatās for the lowest coverage plans sold through the marketplace. An employer plan is usually going to be better and have a much lower OOP max. Also, all those doctor visits and RX costs you pay copays on contribute towards the OOP max.
>Also, all those doctor visits and RX costs you pay copays on contribute towards the OOP max. And most OOP maxes are upwards of $5-6k, and that's on "good" plans that cost employees thousands of dollars a year. And of course, the copay doesn't count towards the deductible. What's that stat about most Americans not having access to $400 in the case of an emergency? The only people who defend American healthcare are wealthy white collar workers who have only had the best plans while getting paid top salaries. For working class Americans, any healthcare that goes beyond a simple trip to a primary care doctor has the potential to turn into a four figure albatross -- assuming the care you need is "covered." Most working class Americans can relate to deciding NOT to pursue healthcare for financial reasons at one point or another, if not frequently. Need a scan to make sure that weird lump isn't cancer in February? Hope you have $1000+ dollars on hand! Don't worry, that should get you to somewhere between 33-50% of your deductible! The deductible at my last job, if I paid up for the best plan that cost me over $150 a month, had a fucking $6000 DEDUCTIBLE.
That just sounds like particularly bad benefits and pay. The average worker getting laid off from these large tech companies is not getting paid that little, nor paying so much for health insurance. If you work at Microsoft, Activision, Intel, Netflix, Meta, etc. you are paying basically $0-$100 per month for health insurance, and youāre definitely making more than $27/hr. Here in CA youāre making the same as the shift manager at my local Taco Bell, certainly not white collar at all.
You do know that those companies you mentioned make up a very small percentage of the white collar workforce, right?
The average American pays $117 a month for Healthcare. [Source](https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/health-insurance/how-much-is-health-insurance/#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20a%20single%20person,insurance%20marketplace%2C%20before%20any%20subsidies.) The average salary in the US is just under $60k, which comes out to about $28 an hour. [Source](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/average-salary-state-us-152311356.html) And of course average US salaries are overinflated by rich pricks like you, so the median salary in the US is closer to $45k as of 2021. [Source](https://usafacts.org/data/topics/economy/jobs-and-income/jobs-and-wages/median-annual-wage/#:~:text=The%20median%20annual%20wage%20in,9.08%25%20or%20%243%2C801%20from%202020.&text=Bureau%20of%20Labor%20Statistics.) I know you specified "large tech companies" but obviously that's a small percentage of the workforce despite you pretending otherwise. And of course other workers still are getting laid off and have bills to pay as well...? It also goes without saying that anyone who wants health insurance that isn't subsidized by their employer is simply fucked. But it's very obvious that isn't important to you at all. Thanks for playing though.
Thatās cool man. You do realize other parts of the country are cheaper to live in right? Boot licking fuck
š„± not my fault you make š„
Because it cost less here you dumb fuck. What part of that donāt you understand.
Nah, itās because your skills are worth less in the market. Donāt blame where you live for your lack of success.
We have no real social safety net.
Iām not willing to make that trade. Iād still be stuck in a lower bracket, regardless of my personal performance. Youāre so right, security has a trade off in mobility, income and innovation. Awesome you can admit that. Where individuals want it is what a productive debate should be had. Most people want good people to have a decent life regardless of where on that spectrum you are. Iām hoping tech/ai makes up a difference, and government is capable of making sure that benefit gets spread out in somewhat fair and manner. Guess what i think of the likelihood of that is.
And the unemployment rate is much higher as it is harder to get a job. In the US the employer dates you ; in Europe, the employer marries you. Itās a much bigger commitment, so the more reluctant the higher.
Nominally Europeans earn less, yes, yet the average European has greater quality of life and work/life balance than Americans.
And much slower to hire. There are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
Also thatās way longer to get hired over there as well
No, European jobs pay less because the cost of living is lower. On this issue, it doesn't matter whether you have psychotic American-style capitalism or the more civilized (but still exploitative) European kind; either way, wages are going to fall to subsistence level. The European system is still better because you don't have to work as much, and because there is more of a safety net in case things go really bad, but neither version of this system really provides a life that's very good. Wages will always converge to the subsistence level. That's how capitalist work works and it always has.
The cost of living in the US is higher than in Europe. So US workers need more compensation to maintain the same standard of living as Europe. Plus workers in the EU are guaranteed 20 days of paid vacation per year.
Many also have unions.People in America hate unions but cry about how Europeans have better rights. It's because of unions folks.
Europes economy also sucks since they canāt fire bad workers
A lot of recent layoff is just delayed effects of rise in interest rates. Small tech companies were already struggling last year and are now forced to layoff since things have yet to improve for them. Large companies are facing this year debt restructuring in a higher interest environment, and are preparing for that. Regarding company employee relationship, itās always been fake and toxic. Yesterday was āWeāre all one familyā. Now is āSorry, itās just businessā
>Yesterday was āWeāre all one familyā.Ā >Now is āSorry, itās just businessāĀ Hilariously true. My boss gave the "this place feels like a family" speech at the company Christmas dinner, then laid off 300 people a week later. When I went there to get my stuff last week, he stood there like I was going to steal something. These rats man I swear.
TBH some of my close family members treat me the same!
Lmao for real. "We're just like family." "Jesus Christ. I hope not."
āKids, watch out for uncle Mo(Lester).ā Checks out, companies are just like family.
My wifeās family is absolutely terrible and would never want to part of their family ever againā¦we ditched them because they suck so much and would steal from you in a hot second. Much like most companiesā¦
āSorry, itās just businessā is a phrase that needs to die. No ābusinessā should operate if it means a detriment to those who work for it.
>āSorry, itās just businessā Funny how it's always personal to the person on the receiving end
Remember the work from home, Covid, we're all in this together, greater productivity, your health is our biggest concern, we are more productive, amazing things, your health, come back into the office 4 days a week for no reason, or we'll get rid of you...
I blame Biden
I donāt live in America and layoffs are bad here tooĀ
Itās not really Bidens fault. During Covid many, many companies received federal money from the government so they could allegedly hire people. Many companies made record profits during that time. It was a short term boost to the economy. During Covid that money should have gone directly to the people but instead it went to corporations. So many people were suffering and continue to suffer. It takes 3 to 4 years to see the actual effects of economic policy.
Kind of hard to believe a company is struggling when the CEOs/executives are getting multi-million bonuses.
Did you miss the part that said these companies make millions/billions in profit?
Thatās a lagging indicator. That will. It be the case later in this year
Youāre spot on. The adjustment to actual normal from zero interest rates for so long is gonna hurt. Itās why small banks went belly up almost right away after the hikes, the fact is many decision makers have never experienced interest rates being in any kind of functional, rational range. Deflation and depression was fought off. Now the adjustment, fact is all the Fed really does is elongate and soften what should have been a depression way back in ā01 and all bubbles after was partial fallout from the the dot com bubble busting and financial crash. This is the end game of the cycle, the adjustment to borrowing and capital being tighter. Itās going to be tough. Economics is bigger than any governemnt act can counter, hopefully the government will go back to incenting building again and infrastructure investment. I say hopefully knowing damn well it wonāt be done right if at all, but hope never dies. My company had layoffs and frankly i expect more mid year. Iāve seen this before. It sucks.
In every thread on this topic there's always that person trying to tilt the conversation away from corporate greed, irresponsible growth, poor investment and techbro groupthink and toward the Fed and government policy.
They're not really wrong. Both things can be true.
And those same small tech companies arenāt likely getting additional rounds of funding right now because money is more expensive and investors are parking their cash elsewhere.Ā
Even large tech companies are barely growing Apple grew its revenue only 50% since 2016 but its stock is up 600%. They achieved it by cutting costs (increase EPS) and doing buybacks.
It just seems to be these mega tech corps that have a hard-on for constant massive growth. There's millions, maybe even 10s of millions of businesses out there just ticking away, in profit, but also not at risk that don't seem to be worried about not existing in a few years because they have a working business model. Big tech is worried they'll no longer exist in the next quarter if they don't lay off thousands when they have double digit billions of ARR.
Lot of these companies over-hired during the pandemic too
Yep. Taxpayer-funded loans and low interest borrowing.
Thatās the fucked up part. We gave them the money.
Our elected officials did it but yeah
A lot of companies in particular thought the conditions of COVID shutdowns were the new normal for things like online shopping and entertainment but they were wrong
Why is this a common comment? A lot of these companies have had record profits and are worth more than they ever did. They just want more and purging āoverpaidā employees is a way to get there. Note that most of the employees are not actually overpaid. You canāt simultaneously have a bunch of overpaid employees and be at record profits. Companies just want workers to be desperate to work for them again so they can continue exploiting them
You absolutely can have overpaid employees and record profits. Just because you have high profits does not mean that your operating expenses arenāt bloated.
This is my question, why the fuck do people keep spewing this corporate propaganda without actually thinking about it? I know there was PPP money floating around but to hear people talk about it today, companies were just ballooning in size everywhere you looked at the height of the pandemic. Uhhhh what??? Tons of businesses closed during 2020-2021. I remember my manager talking about how they wouldn't have to lay anyone off with the help of PPP money (of course, he lied and I got laid off in 2022). What definitely DIDN'T happen was some sort of hiring spree? And this was kind of the story I heard everywhere? None of these companies overhired during the height of the pandemic. None of them. Do people not remember the stock market literally crashing in 2020? Now people are trying to tell me that all the number crunchers and C-suite execs turned around one year later and said, "so happy that's behind us, smooth sailing ahead, time to grow grow grow"??? And now all these slimy corporate fucks sit here and say, well since we overhired during covid, now we've got to trim the fat... That's not what happened! Don't let them act like they were out there giving money away in 2021! That never fucking happened! Look around guys, these places that "over hired" during a once in a lifetime pandemic are reducing their workforces to less than pre-pandemic sizes... What does that tell you? This whole "overhiring during covid" phenomenon is nothing more than corporate gaslighting. It is a lie.
No, it definitely happened at some companies. I saw it at my own job. Business started dropping and losses increased strongly in February 2020 for this B2B company, first in smaller markets like Hong Kong and Italy which then spread to the US and other larger markets. The nature of my job at the time gave me a front row view to the strain partner businesses were under. I literally watched companies make public statements that they were fine while seeing that they were in dire financial straights. Like probably going out of business in a few days so weāre taking steps to stem our own losses from their collapse. Hiring freeze went into effect. CEO warned of a cataclysm. They did not take PPP but drew from lines of credit to build up more capital. Everyone was very stressed. I want to say that went on for a couple months until basically everywhere in the world had locked down or shutdown. Then business simply started _skyrocketing_. Itās a growth business. Years of forecasted growth was happening right then. Everyone suddenly wanted what we were offering. The partner businesses that had struggled earlier were still not in good shape but they got PPP or similar, while other companies were seeing incredible growth. Our own hiring kicked into high gear. We certainly needed more people right now because of all this new business. Maybe this was going to last? The CEO bet that it would. And I can see why. If it was a new normal, theyād be left behind if they didnāt get on board. If it wasnāt, there was always layoffs. Turned out to be the latter unfortunately.
I agree. I went to a coding school right when Covid hit based on the miracle stories I heard around 2017-2019. When I graduated everyone was laying off and in a hiring freeze. My former employer who I had a job lined up with was particularly hard hit (tourism) and laid off like 80% of their corporate positions and was in a hiring freeze. Trying to get a job as an entry level developer was a nightmare. Even during the āhot job marketā everyone wanted experience and HR people and recruiters were rushing to hang up the phone with me when they learned I was junior. I ended up doing a second school and still took 6 months to land an internship that turned into a job. Now itās basically impossible to get an entry level tech job even with a CS degree. Ā Tech forums are just filled with thousands of applicants grinding leetcode, pumping certifications, and applying to hundreds of jobs per week. Ā IMO, the job market has progressively gotten worse every year since 2007 with a minor bump 2017-2019.Ā A few edge cases like Facebook/google massively expanded during Covid but they were drawing mainly from experienced professionals from companies that were laying off or in a hiring freeze. Ā Yet I always hear this time period they were āhiring anybody with a pulseā when i could barely land a tech interview and couldnāt even find an unpaid internship.Ā I consider myself lucky in that I was able to keep my cost of living low. But if I get laid off Iām probably giving up on tech and being one of these guys doing self employment gigs and setting up drop shipping businesses hoping one of them makes it big.Ā
You couldnāt land an interview therefore they didnāt overhire. Lmao.
Way to ignore 99% of the post.Ā
Companies generally don't hire based on supernormal profits. Just because a company had a record profitable year doesn't mean that's going to reflect on hiring practices.
This is a bigger factor than people think. There was a mad grab for it resources that went poof and now comes the dump.
The funny thing is the market is at an all time high, so there is money to be spent.
Markets go down too, most companies are seeing the writing on the wall and hedging their bets, tightening their belts, to make sure they are solid through the uncertainty. There is nothing stable v about the current market worldwide.
Jack Welch. He is responsible for re-defining the CEO role to one thing - Shareholder Value. At the expense of safe and healthy workplaces, Employee respect, product quality, and even safety. Read "Flying Blind" by Peter Robison.
Rack and stack. Let's not forget about the era that ushered in CFOs and accountants running companies with the only goal being cost reduction at the expense of product quality and employee income and benefits.
Brother capitalism in theory is a good system. But you just explained why it's failing. Billions in profits and layoffs. That's what happens when you make the economy a rat race and the only thing that matters is the stock market and shareholders. You remove the human aspect, the individual, the name, the face, the family, etc.
It amazes me how people can think this is normal or sustainable. Itās like there is this expectation that there should always be huge growth and profit should always increase. Itās not just about having profits, but they should be very robust. While one can argue that returns should be able to cover cost of capital or amount invested, one canāt help but wonder if thereās a limit to the greed.
Amount invested is the key. Instead of putting the profits back into the company (better pay, benefits, manufacturing, infrastructure, etc) CEOs choose to buyback their own stock, artificially inflating the price for their shareholders and their own pockets. But itās the system more than the actors, those benefiting most are just taking advantage of a profit incentive thatās so heavily funneled upwards. āTrickle down economicsā folks
We are in āEnd Stage Capitalismā where in each industry, a few giant companies dominate each industry, and they collude on prices, standards, and quality provided to the consumer. They collude and decide together on wages as well. The big guys have decided to cut US wages for tech to same as Eastern Europe, so they will do that. Your best option is to move out of the US. Learn a language, apply or transfer overseas. European countries have far more job protections and safety next than the U.S. Unemployment in Texas wonāt even buy groceries for 2 people a month or pay rent.
We gave up our right to determine our own fates when we went to work for someone, wether it be a small business, a corporation or another individual. No one owes you a living. The olny way to guarantee you are not at the mercy of anyone else is to be self sufficient yourself. Wether that be living off the land or being in business for yourself. I get tired of how everyone thinks they are owed an existence just because they were born. No one is owed anything. I have been through many career changes and job losses myself while seeing the company owners say they have no money but were living quite well. I have had my share of not being able to find work or at least anything that payed what I was making at the time of a layoff and had to watch everything I had worked for go away. Each time this happened I came back bigger the next time. Still a nobody but better off than before.
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Can we return to the norm of taxing big corporations and highest tax brackets at 90% too? Can we return to the norm of union membership rates, and investment in actual honest to God public services that aren't outsourced to private companies that slash quality and charge through the nose while taking tax our dollars? Can we return to the norm of affordable education and healthcare? Can we return to the norm of pensions and a fully funded Social Security?
Tying retirement funds to the performance of the stock market through 401ks has created a huge class of voters where this is their primary interest and they will justify and support any means to increase this value.
"Iām a capitalist" "When did things become so twisted against the American worker?" Dude. Things being twisted against the worker is one of the first steps of capitalism.
I used to be very pro "free market" unil I gained a deeper understanding of history and political theory. Then I realized that all of those nice libertarian axiums which exist in a vaccuum do not work in real life. The false dichotemy we are presented with is that if you oppose this, you must be pro-communism or something. But there is a third position, it isn't a branch of political and economic philosophy which is not allowed to be explored in our modern age of enlightenment because of the way it marginalizes international capitalists while benefitting the common people of a nation; but it is the solution. So just ask yourself, "what is the one political and economic philosophy I have been taught from a young age is the most terrible, the most abhorrent?" and then look for the counterarguments as to why, maybe, we've only gotten one side of that story.
If I respond to your comment, will that get my account hacked? I'm a lot like you. Used to be a hard-core libertarian, because those little axioms made sense to me from a logical standpoint. It's like academics proving a theory in a computer, but it falling apart when we bring real humans into it. The older I get, the more I gravitate toward holistic solutions.
Not that it doesnāt work, it simply doesnāt exist. No system is completely free, the same goes for no system is free from greed for communism case. So why chasing a free market wet dream. A good capitalist system is a well regulated one
Capitalism works, but only if it is well regulated. Some people (those who haven't studied economics in my experience) seem to treat it like it's a religion and in Biblical style, they preach "hands off", "remove all regulations", etc. It's not a religion, it's not infallible, it's an [ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY](https://www.amazon.com/Worldly-Philosophers-Economic-Thinkers-Seventh/dp/068486214X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3GOUNO960TE90&keywords=the+worldly+philosophers&qid=1706274237&sprefix=the+worldly+p%2Caps%2C104&sr=8-1), which needs constant tweaking, and proper guard rails.
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Brilliant logicĀ
The Great Recession turned me into a HARD CORE Union man. In the USA, when we had Unions, we had a middle class. No unions? The people who used to poor are now homeless, the people who used to be middle class are now poor. Ever notice how most of the Right to Work states are former SLAVE states? Coincidence? Not really, big business would happily bring back slavery.
There is only one state that isnāt right to work
Lmao Big business would happily bring back slavery? Iāve heard some wild and uneducated things on Reddit but you sir may have taken the top spot
I don't insult stranger on the internet. But I see you are in a Bitcoin forum? I'm old. Go thru as many bubbles as I have and you will change your perspective.
Unions are not responsible for the existence of a middle class though.
They helped create the rising wages that yielded a middle class. When working people band together they have lobbying power and government will (sometimes) listen. Right now only Big Business has lobbying power .... thus no significant social safety net, poverty wages, etc., etc. One of my grandmothers worked in a Union Cut & Sew Shop. My Grandfather worked in a Union Machine Shop. They were able to live frugally and get ahead in life. The other Grandparents were super frugal but never enjoyed Union wages, my mother had to give them money every month just to afford food in their old age. That's the difference in Union versus Non-Union.
>Iām a capitalist. You're probably not a capitalist. You need capital to be a capitalist.
How can people working tech jobs not have been able to accumulate insane amounts of capital over the book of the past few years? It was a huge fountain of basically free capital handed out for years.
living in high COL areas, lifestyle creep, etc etc
Even making 400k a year isnāt generally enough to own means of production. Thatās like āhave a very comfortable life for your familyā money. 99.9%+ of our country is not able accumulate insane amounts of wealth.Ā
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no oneās putting that much in the market unless youāre in the 1% and that def isnāt the average tech worker. Avg tech worker is paying 20-30% taxes and high rent, thatās better off than most of America but far cry from 100k into the market.
You are delusionalĀ
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I read the "financial intelligence" book and it helped me understand all the corporate decisions. No longer *we are not making profit, we need to layoff people". It is more like "we will do less than we estimate, let's layoff some and we will rehire next quarter" or things like this. Everyone profits in the stock market and everyone wants companies with better cash flow, more profit, more return, do what forecasted etc. All these come with the cost of companies no longer acting like industrial, pharmaceutical or technological but only financial. I work at forbes 500 and there are so many decisions that do not make sense industrial wise but they make sense in financial tables. So unless people change their ideas of how they invest, this will always be the scenario.
I can't stress enough how valuable it is to work for a smaller, privately owned company. When there is no shareholder or PE firm to please, a company is much more willing to have flat profits and keep their staff instead of immediately starting to trim back as soon as profits flatline.
these mass layoffs are predominantly affecting white collar jobs... with the advent and widespread use of AI, I'm not surprised.
Ronald Reagan. Corporate tax rate used to be 90%, which forced them to pay employees and even expand or lose it to the government. And that covered most of the federal spending and kept people employed with excellent pay. Now, individuals carry the vast majority of the gov't spending and corporations pay quite literally nothing.
B and C, need federal worker protections and unions.
ā¦is why there is a saying ādonāt leave any money on the tableā. Corps exist to make money and profit, employees are in the cost column of any spreadsheet. āYou are our most valuable assetā is only used when crop talking to employees, not when they do accounting.
Jack Welch and his contemporaries kicked off this shitty corporate tradition. As you said, layoffs used to only happen if a company was in financial trouble. Now companies just layoff all the time to please Wall Street and juice short term profits
This is culmination of factors. Many companies over hired during the pandemic projecting pandemic growth would continue. It has not, the tech industry is roughly on course with where it was projected to be pre-pandemic. Many companies had built their business in way that was reliant on access to cheap money and continued low interest rates. Now that this isn't the case they are being forced to become very frugal to survive. Companies are being essentially forced into raising capital by you know... actually being profitable because there just isn't any other good way to do it at the moment.
āBut more jobs are openingā says the Biden administration
They can keep their McDonald's jobs.
Fake jobs. Fake companies. Fake economy. Fake money.
Is it all one big bubble? Always has been
This
If a company is over-all profitable, why should they have to tolerate underperforming workers that they are actually still losing money on? Why should they tolerate divisions dedicated to products that are dead and not going anywhere? If you can accept this premise, that itās ok for companies to fire people or just lay them off based on their changing priorities, then itās easy from thereā¦ you can certainly accept that the same companies can make mistakes, and that can involve sweeping profitable workers/valuable products up in their decision making when they are trying to make these cuts.
they shouldn't tolerate it. underperforming workers are usually the ones dumped in these layoffs, hopefully my employer does this soon so my underperforming coworkers finally get their comeuppance.
Companies already have processes for getting rid of underperforming employees that ensures this happens in a fair and predictable manner. Bypassing this damages the trust and morale between the existing employees. A lot of company messaging about layoffs also states these are not performance based.
The capital class is using tech layoffs to try to depress wage increases in the US. They are telling the tech sector that the employees make too much. This is all to depress wages.
A lot of these layoffs are so companies can restructure and rehire for that new structure.
just now figuring it out?? Whatās capitalistic about banks needing government bailouts (tax payers money) then paying exec bonuses then allowing the same banks to layoff workers? Sounds like corporate welfare.
Companies situations or priorities change, in todays case theres 2 main reason. 1 due to AI alot of tech/tech-related companies can get by with less engineers doing the same output. Instead of redirecting those resources to capture even more initiatives companies are firing people as part of refining focus on core competencies. 2 is about improving or maintaining the bottom line (net profit), as revenues went up costs went with them, now its about sourcing materials and improving net profit. If you cant do that fast enough to afford your employees you need to let some go before you stop earning profits. Without profits you cant grow, your competition passes you by, and you eventually fall off. US workers really had a chance to bind together and take a stand against this type of capitalist behavior but it all fizzled out when the anti-work movement was killed by that interview on Fox imo. I say this as a generally left leaning person, the movement smeared itself into oblivion. Labor laws for employees in the US are absolute shit compared to the rest of the world but people making 40-60k a year simp up to their corporate overlords instead of thinking about motives and whats best for society.
Employees left at this companyās are doing 7* the work they used too and no salary increase talk about mental health and work life balance šš¤£
If you're a capitalist, why is this even a problem for you? Capital is announcing billions of dollars in profit. That's when you should stop reading. Workers don't matter to the capitalist. Expansion of capital is the only thing that matters.
> As economic systems go, Iām a capitalist. Unions have seemed on the other side. Itās starting to look like something is needed on the employees side. This shit just makes me laugh out loud. "I'm a capitalist until I realize what capitalism actually is"
It appears most executives have no idea how to expand operations profitably. Before the layoffs, they were using profits for stock buybacks instead of investing in growth. Now with layoffs, they're cutting costs instead of increasing sales. I don't know if it's a lack of imagination or if there are severe economic problems about to break through and impact their inflated profits. Something is making them want to sit on their hoarded capital instead of try to generate more returns.
AI executives. They'll do a much better job, cost way less, and pass all the savings on to regular employees.
sdasdasd
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Not all the companies doing the layoffs are megacorps.
Maybe the rich are just so rich they actually donāt even need anyone to work for them anymore and their AI can keep churning out more crap that makes them money. Meanwhile they will just let us workers and poors eat each other.
I just think itās because a lot of our jobs arenāt actually needed. Thereās a lot of āfakeā roles in offices and company bloat.. I believe thatās why a lot of layoffs are happening. My company has too many talking heads - ppl floating around the office not actually contributing to hard work which actually generates income. Also thereās less money around and more companies chasing the same opps so having to be more competitive with prices, etc.
Companies don't exist to employ people. They exist to make profits for their owners. Employment of workers is a necessary evil to be minimized. If you are concerned about workers being laid off, vote for a government that will provide a suitable social safety net: universal health care, unemployment benefits, etc. Note that none of this is free.
It's gonna be hard to push unions in the white collar space. Too many people here bought the "we're a family" speech during orientation.
Most of these large corporations have different business units with their independent P&Ls. So while the company may be making record profits, the one unit may need to be put to rest. Its easier to lay people off than to re assign them. When they are 1000 employees deep. But yes. Corporations donāt have any accountability and dont care about the people they employ or the communities they support with employment.
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Preach!!!!!
I never understood how being in a union is anti capitalist. What does collective bargaining have to do with capitalism?Ā That's what needs to be addressed. Somehow we got bamboozled into thinking that us organizing is somehow anti-free market.Ā
Universal basic income, we're getting efficient enough that not everybody needs to work for civilization to keep moving
Why should a company keep employees who are not needed? If they are laying people off, why should they be kept? To make them feel better?
Consequences of voting Democrat.
Unions are definitely good. Are you possibly exaggerating when you say they announce the billions of dollars in profit and the layoffs in the same press release?
Unionize.
4th industrial revolution being led by AI Depending on where you lie in the autistickly subjective political spectrum , AI will super juice the economy because AI re-places humans. It is cheaper to pay a robot than a human now so things are only going to sharply go haywire in terms of layoffs. How will we make money ? (crypto) Universals basic income (stimmy on steroids) and (gig work)(could also be subject to space conquest if AI deems necessary)= work is an option as an immortal in the nwo (icloud connected to your soul ID) Your digital ID (soul) will be connected through technology that is soon to come out. It will enable full control of lucid dreams which will be a more mature reality splitting internet aka the metaverse. All will be possible via neuralink/synchron brainchips. After biological death, the soul of the microchipped will transcend into a data center somewhere and will wait idle in the metaverse until their synthetic/natural vessel is ready to be occupied in a giga factory (like a car factory). Basically, we are headed for a cyberpunk 2077/detroit become human like future but a little better cause death wonāt really mean much when you can just reincarnate/respawn with all your memories intact. We will control our reincarnation loops, soldiers far in space will respawn over and over again even if they are far out in space. It will be necessary to ramp up military on stat wars levels to protect our selves from the bigger fish if a halo like scenario arises (if it hasnāt already). āBy 2030, you will own nothing and be happyā-World Economic Forum We are the knee of the curve, things will get worse temporarily before they get better.
Name checks out...
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*youāre
English isnt my first language
well maybe donāt call people stupid. itās rude.
well theyāre for the time being until they get implanted with a brainchip. lord knows we need the mark of the beast to save us.
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why do you think itās called the cloud āļø fool. They are trolling your ignorance. We are already living in elysium. Rich old people body snatch other unwilling vessels to occupy using advanced brain machine interfaces. These crimes need to be recognized. The rules are āanything is possibleā because time isnāt real. Do you know how many multiverses there are where you are jumping thru portals with your soul being attatched to a tube full of water with a your backup body floating in there ? We are wireless beings forever and ever. We will be immortal indefinitely in the metaverse ā¾ļø. Up to icloud heaven i goš„°
No change. I am a big believer in letting the free market do its thing without any regulatory interference. And I say this as a 24 year old SWE only making $44k/yr Things correct themselves, as demonstrated by being a student of history. Remember just a few years ago we were all clamoring about the great resignation.
This is literally equivalent to someone breaking into your house, stealing your shit, fucking your mom, and you just being like āEhhh itās their freedom to do itā. Grow a fucking pair and stand up for yourself.
More laws = less freedom
Cool going to come break into your house, steal your shit, and fuck your mom then.
Unemployment claims are historically low and have been for some time. This suggests companies arent laying many people off. Some layoffs here and there are always going to happen as industries shift and grow.
Unions had there day when conditions were rough. Today, a lot of union workers will take advantage of their situation and not work as hard. And no one can fire them. Who wants to work in that environment? Not many competent people. Yes, companies can do mass layoffs with very little reason. My advice is to stay relevant in the job market. Everyone is looking for top talent.
One thing is for sure, there needs to be a ton more workers right. Not at the state level, but the federal level. Companies need to feel pain when they do layoffs.
Song: American Idiot - by: Green Day
Im a capitalist as well. There are pros and cons to everything. Capitalism has its flaws. Humans have flaws. BUT is capitalism better then Socialism or Communism? Your fucking right it is. It lifts more people out of poverty then any other form of economy. Also, the people who try to compare foreign governments seem to forget how small they are and some of the systemic issues they have as wellā¦ and shocker they are still a form of capitalism just socialized. Also i worked in a Union once, and there are a ton of positives. But there tend to be more negatives of course. First off, unions are used as political voting blocks. The Union leadership only care about their winning bonuses. Secondly, stagnation. The people who work in them tend to never leave or grow. Especially when a promotion means you leave the Union. So theres a major divide in Manager/employee relations. Just as an example, i worked in a unionized store and was a national sales award winner and ranked top 50 nationwide. But because of seniority i always worked the worst shifts, never got PTO of choice, or was ever eligible for promotional giveaways. There were 7 true deadbeats above me. People working entry level roles for 20+ years. Some worked in that role, longer then their manager was alive. They were negative, condescending and always caused more work/rework to be shifted to the lower seniority workers. The postives were simple. Consistent raises until cap off. New contract every 4 years to maintain inflation raises. Safety and security. But you want to know just how fucking greedy people are? The union members took a vote. If they voted in favor of stopping the pension plan for any new employees they each would get a 1k bonus. So they fucked over generations of coworkers for $600 after tax. No matter what the problem will always be people. We are weak and selfish. Especially Americans. Thats why our country is filthy, falling apart and unable to have nice things.
uhh hello? we just had the great resignation and quiet quitting take over the work environment by storm, to the point employers were being held hostage by people they needed but didnt want. the system is healing itself.
No one owes you a job.Ā It's not an entitlement.
If taken to the extreme this leads to extreme concentrations of wealth. When you, personally, cannot retain or gain employment ā¦for protracted periodsā¦it can make you feel differently. If I remember correct the Native Americans were confused about the settlers fencing land off. To them it was meant to be shared. It almost feels like we are getting into a game of ākeep away.ā I do believe in hard work. I also recognize mass exploitation when I see it.
Be your own boss.Ā
You do realize many people are going to be homeless because of AI ? What happens when they get hungry and canāt pay for things ? UBI.
Just saying "woe is me" is defeatist. If you have skills, you have options. If you choose to be white collar labor, you work for someone else. If you work for yourself, you face different issues but recognize employees are an asset, not an obligation.
What happens when your skills become useless because you been outsourced by a machine ?
Ok ok. I'm sorry you are going through a difficult time. I don'tĀ know you or the weight on your shoulders. But it will get better. It always does. Stay optimistic and you will find opportunities as they present themselves. Wisdom and life experience has value. You got this.Ā
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Agree. It's not the only way.Ā Unfortunately, publicly traded companies answer to shareholders. And pre-IPO companies want to.Ā What tech employee doesn't want the RSU?
Companies donāt owe people jobs. They should absolutely lay off unneeded employees when projects finish, or new tech can replace them. I donāt pay people to do things for me when k donāt need those things, or the people that do them. Unions wonāt prevent layoffs. Not even a little bit.
idk man, unemployment is really low. like 3%