Every day there’s more big job cuts at tech and games companies. I’ve not seen anything explaining why they all seam to be at once like this. Is it coincidence or is there something driving all the job cuts?

  • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
    1076·
    10 months ago

    It’s interest rates.

    Loans are more expensive, but critically, so are eggs.

    Tech workers like eggs, and see no reason to buy fewer, so they’re asking for more money, unionizing, or hopping jobs to increase their salaries.

    Notice how the big players are releasing press releases each layoff? No attempt at secrecy. No payouts to NDA the laid off employees. It’s an intimidation tactic.

    It’s working at the moment, but tech workers get over their job change discomfort fast when there’s a 100% raise on the table. The market rate vs curent pay gap just creates pressure to change jobs until they do, even if they’re scared.

    And the shareholders are all fucked.

    Every tech layoff is a lottery ticket toward a company ending event. And then every employee who leaves because they realize the company is incapable of loyalty. Then every worker who leaves because their suppressed wages aren’t keeping up with their expenses or hobbies. Another chance to end the company. Nobody knows which perl script is the lynchpin of their company, or which random person will leave with all knowledge of it.

    The CEOs are positively aggressively collecting chances to bankrupt their shareholders.

    But the CEO will get a nice payout next quarter. So that’s nice.

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
      26·
      10 months ago

      Every tech layoff is a lottery ticket toward a company ending event. And then every employee who leaves because they realize the company is incapable of loyalty. Then every worker who leaves because their suppressed wages aren’t keeping up with their expenses or hobbies. Another chance to end the company. Nobody knows which perl script is the lynchpin of their company, or which random person will leave with all knowledge of it.

      Plus, as this happens the first/second/third time to new employees, they lose any sense of company-loyalty they might have had at their first job. The next time anything goes wrong, these people are already writing applications, and then quitting the moment they get an offer somewhere.

      This behavior by company trains people to associate fuck all with their current job. Which is a good attitude as a worker, but usually not something a company would have wanted, historically. A privately held company would usually want to aim for high worker loyalty, allowing them to endure bad market times without immediately shedding most of their workforce.

      Modern shareholders+C-suites behavior reinforces this, however. Everything goes in the name of saving the quarterly report and making it look good and paying out your own bonuses.

    • Clent@lemmy.world
      21·
      10 months ago

      There are laws around how layoffs have to be communicated. Secret layoffs at large companies aren’t a thing.

      NDA’s occur at the start of employment. When someone is laid off, there is typically a severance that includes a separation agreement, these may have an NDA clause.

      The rest of this I agree with. This is being pushed by the shareholders. The scare tactic is an added bonus.

      Unionize.

      • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
        101·
        10 months ago

        Secret layoffs at large companies aren’t a thing.

        Yeah. They aren’t supposed to be a thing.

        I’ve seen periods when a bunch of colleagues used to work for XYZ, and then didn’t, and were real quiet about why they left, and “didn’t have any hard feelings”. (And remodeled the bathroom the same month they stopped working at XYZ.) So I assumed they got an illegal NDA and a fat goodbye bonus to keep them from questioning it.

        I guess I’m technically just making assumptions as deeply cynical person.

        Edit: and I imagine the lawyers involved set the whole thing up so it’s technically not a secret layoff, by strict legal standards. Smelled like one, though. :)

        Edit 2: Could also just have been a company below some legal size cut-off, I suppose.