Layoffs - who do you blame?
Just an open ended question on why are layoffs happening on such a scale. I personally feel the skill to salary ratio has fucked up so much lately that the companies are having to fire people who are essentially useless to them. More of liabilities than just assets! What do you think?
NaiveBullet
Stealth
a year ago
Absolutely agreed. Hiring in hordes because money was easily available earlier and founders/companies thought that they will be able to build more and hence get more value / valuation sooner was the core reason why the skill to salary ratio got f’ed up. And it’s good that it’s being reset now.
Coming to who to blame for layoffs - no one. It’s pure capitalism - there was money, hence there were jobs. For whatever time people got paid a lot more than they deserved - they should be rather thankful. If they built their life around the assumption that this much money was the new normal, it was their naïveté. Companies got to survive, and they have to do whatever has to be done… as long as it’s ethical. Firing is fine. Not paying salaries / dues is not.
Yes completely agree. As far as my mind goes or whatever I’ve read, in the tech industry at least, firing has always been there for a very long time but job switching or lateral hiring is somewhat of a modern thing. Talent poaching became a thing, which again I think is fine, but overvaluing something became a new norm and that’s where things going south.
Hopefully industry stabilises sooner rather than later.
How do you measure the skill to salary ratio? And who gets to decide the ratio is high
Microsoft’s revenue per employee close to 1M while they pay 50-100k for even top talent. If anything we are underpaid lol
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Layoffs in big tech are unnecessary. Instead of spending valuable time and money on lay offs to save 10-15% cost they could have easily just increased their revenue by that amount
SabChangaSi
Stealth
a year ago
It's not that easy to increase the revenue because of the general slowdown. Big tech wouldn't be able to charge the same amount they used to charge their clients.
NaiveBullet
Stealth
a year ago
It’s just plain naive to say this. “Just easily increased revenue”… that doesn’t happen so easily even in good times, forget when the global economy is unpredictable and in shambles.
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SlavaRussi
Stealth
a year ago
only correct answer
Malphas
Stealth
a year ago
Yeah lol. Everyone blaming skills and all. But not understanding the basic of economics.
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stupidusername
Stealth
a year ago
Founders at mistake. They said they are doing layoff to do the cost cutting but at the same time they will draw salaries in Cr
So? You become a founder ceo and draw salary of 1cr. See if it is deserving or not then
stupidusername
Stealth
a year ago
It doesn’t matter if deserving or not but its simple that if you can lower your salaries in tough time and retain few employees then you need to do. You dont need to be in swiggy to know this basic (though some people in swiggy doesn’t have that basic sense)
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SlavaRussi
Stealth
a year ago
You guys are the Fools Of Randomness.
You think you got jobs because you had skills? Wrong. You got jobs because the US government distributed free money for the last 10 years and that money flew into other countries from the US. That was the funding your useless startup got.
Now, the money is not free anymore. The money which flew to other countries is going back to the US.
Don't get ahead of yourselves. We are at the mercy of the US Feds.
UpbeatBelt62
Stealth
a year ago
Satya vachan
ArchGamer0
Student
a year ago
Yourself.
Either you lack skills in tech or office politics.
Wrong decision making, companies have been hiring in HOPE of increase in business and not the requirement. And it is nothing against your skills, it's all office politics and your gender. 👍
Writing CRUD apps is not going to take humanity to another level. But founders and employees think they do. In 2000s call center employees thought so... In 2007s it was real estate agents and builders...
Don't believe me? Scroll up and find out how many think they are entitled!!
Demand and Supply.
We witnessed unexpected demand post-pandemic. Everyone hoped for a downturn but besides the first few months of 2000, there was none. Just look at NIFTY from March 2000.
Recall that silicon chip manufacturers had delayed the chip orders anticipating fall in public spending post pandemic. They were surprised like everyone and caught off-gaurd. Petrol crossed Rs. 100 in India but no one cried out.
Maybe, we just realized the futility of saving money with such a close encounter with death during the pandemic and went out guns blazing with discretionary spending.
Seeing the boom, investors opened up their coffers. There was money to be made in this boom. Companies were flush with money and they did not know what to do with it. So they started pumping money into just about any and every idea.
But they needed resources. Demand went up sharply. Supply is inelastic in short term. So prices (salaries) went up. The same talent pool, but everyone gets paid more. In the longer term we saw supply go up with more people upskilling and entering the talent pool. The course peddlers made a killing.
With the success in finding vaccines, rapid vaccination and subsequent herd immunity we overcame the pandemic. The uncertainty was over. Discretionary spending was reigned in and demand fell.
At the same time we witnessed the Ukraine-Russia war at the start of 2022. With sanctions on Russia, the energy supply throughout the world was affected. US and EU had to source their demand from elsewhere and this additional demand led to a worldwide increase in energy prices. Energy inflation slowly percolated through the economy affecting everything else. Food prices increased by 10% in US from Dec'21 to Dec'22. This further reduced discretionary spending and reduced demand.
We saw interest rate actions by Fed in 2022 hoping to reign in the inflation. Debt was expensive again. Funding dried up.
Continued.... (1/2)
BearBear
Stealth
a year ago
Companies, every other answer is wrong
WaryQuest39
Stealth
a year ago
USA
Maybe it was long overdue. But the Ukraine war is when it really went for shit.
I would say economic condition.. There was economic stimulation after lock down and now it is getting corrected.. The products and ideas that do not add much values which have taken off post covid will be wiped off during this downturn... That's the reason of layoff.. Anything that is prone to increase faster will be prone to fall faster..
Executive leadership always gets paid. If there is easy almost 0 interest money around - they will borrow as much as possible to show growth. Then they get paid for "growing" the company. Also almost all of them are employees and not stakeholders. So they dont loose anything if company starts losing money - At most they losse the job. But they ensure a big fat payout.
No one was making decisions when they decided to hire. Also notice the ones to begin layoff haf their own personal wealth stuck ( zuck and musk) . Google etc laid off later post investor pressure. For others it was just an excuse to trim (and get a bonus for streamlining 😊)
No one. It's pure capitalism at play and people thought it's all hunky dory in capitalism without any drawbacks, only profits. Look at western world for late stage capitalism signs which will be coming in India eventually. Working class is thinking to unionize over there to counter these effects.
Continued from the earlier comment (2/2)
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Companies needed to control expenses to stay afloat. It was time to be cockroaches and survive the slump. This resulted in widespread downsizing, divisions shutting down, and a downward re-negotiation of salaries for those retained.
The demand went down. But with so many people let go, there was a supply glut. So prices (salaries) slumped further.
GhostWalker
Stealth
a year ago
You can blame the leadership team. The one who spends millions on useless promotions/ marketing. Hiring Virat Kohli or Lionel messi won’t get you the customers. Making the right product would. Investing in your team would.
It’s all just a facade.
People says salaries in tech are high. Bit*h the right marketing can get your product to heights. But these companies are just burning cash on useless marketing. Filling the pockets of some random actors, so called influencers and these brats on Instagram reels who’d do anything for money.
Who eventually suffer in the tough situations? Tech employees.
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