Just a note, that ABNB did a huge layoff at the start of the pandemic which allowed them to come out the other side a much stronger company. Actually highlights your point.
To be fair, there's a very real difference between companies that are thriving or at least doing as well as ever during the pandemic, and those that are seriously hurting. I don't blame the latter for tightening purse strings, but one would hope they're at least not assholes about it.
Agree with you that all in all those companies are still mostly bigger than they were pre-pandemic, and their business indeed get ahead a notch by the effect of the pandemic. And clearly now the dust settles and they're ahead, overall, but need to trim down headcount, because they're not as ahead as they could have been in an alternate universe. That's all fine, although it's not great for those fired.
I just can't stand the pretense "oh no we didn't know we over hired" like come on. We _all_ knew y'all were over hiring. Just cut the crap.
Large companies are handling the fallout from the pandemic better than most other American institutions, and we would be a lot worse off dealing with the coronavirus pandemic if they had been broken up.
For example, most of the US population is currently under lockdown, most local businesses are closed, and households are dependent on delivery services for many products. A weak, broken-up set of former Amazon companies would have less capacity to provide such services, or even to survive.
This is interesting to see. Does feel like most of the companies here got a nice boost during the pandemic. As things change again they need to lose weight?
> There is a big difference between Canonical and Oracle, between Zappos (before Amazon bought them) and Walmart
Right up to the moment where there isn't.
Some companies have great values, a great culture, an inspiring mission and they'll be relatively consistent in maintaining these things for quite extended periods of time: years, sometimes even decades. That's really easy to do during the good times: when you're hitting your numbers and all the trendlines are pointing upwards.
However, when things get more difficult - when there's a downturn, competitors move in, or the market simply moves on - that equation changes a lot. Sooner or later under those circumstances every business has to start making hard calls that will make it very clear to all involved that it is not a family.
We can all point to examples of businesses that have gone out of their way to look after their employees during the pandemic. But even they can't do so indefinitely (hopefully they won't have to try if the vaccination programmes work as well as we all hope). Sooner or later the values of a business will become subservient to commercial reality even if that doesn't happen to our values as individuals.
Tons of companies with "cash on hand" still responded to the current conditions by shedding employees immediately.
I'd argue that the poor government response to pandemic planning led those companies to conclude that whatever length of time this event was to last, there weren't strong signs that national management would mitigate that. They probably read those leaves correctly.
It's not just about the businesses.
(I say all this as someone who got laid off and has some savings but can't last as long as I would've 5 years ago...)
Again, you are failing to address most of a point. That's not a good sign, and I ask you to address it fully, but in the meantime I'll address yours.
Your claim is that this is driven by the pandemic. I think that's pretty suspect. China excepted, pandemic restrictions ended quite a while ago. I think this is much better explained by the usual shifts in the overall economic cycle, especially the Fed's recent increases in interest rates as they seek to quench inflation, plus the matching stock downturn. An easy check on this: Google's announcement of layoffs doesn't even mention the pandemic. Another one is that layoffs are happening across the industry, not just in companies that were especially boosted by the pandemic.
But even if it were purely driven by pandemic growth and then the retreat of growth, changes in growth expectations are not unprecedented. Unless you have numbers that show different, I expect the changes in growth rates are not unusual at all compared with other major economic phenomena.
SO has really become a toxic place which is run by politically correct people. Just look at this corporate speak blog. I don't understand how the corona virus would impact them so hard they have to cut jobs, seems like a bullshit reason to just cut people off imo. Every company should be prepared for bad times.
I have no sympathy for the management. They have obviously done a poor job.
> the whole "Great Resignation" theme of the two pandemic years would suggest that people are instead looking to move away from the established companies
That period was characterised by easy money boosting the job pool relative to applicants. Employees had heightened mobility and many capitalised on the opportunity. That window is now closing, with firms focussing on survival over growth.
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