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Comment by trhway | Hacker News Reader

this is why i don't move out of Bay Area - me and my acquaintances have been through lay offs here at various years, during the booms and busts, and nobody had any significant issues promptly finding a new job (with a salary increase usually :). Compare that to, for example, the next best thing in US tech - when AMZN says come to Seattle i always imagine being laid off from it few years down the road (with a non-compete on top of that :), and if for any reason i don't get a job at the only other game in the town - MS - then what? Probably move to Bay Area :)

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I left Microsoft a couple years ago, with no desire to work at Amazon. I had no problem finding interesting companies in Seattle for interviews. Facebook, Google, Apple, and Twitter are all here. Not to mention a bunch of startups that are generally run by people with experience at those larger companies.

I think it's hilarious that you think Seattle is some backwater tech nowhere with only 2 companies.

or putting it in numbers : 530K vs. 130K (with 40K being employed at AMZN/Seattle and 40K at MS/Seattle) - "Information" at

https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ca.htm

https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/washington.htm#eag

as i said, the next best.

Compare the scenarios:

- a 10%, 4K layoff from AMZN would present a high, by tech standards, unemployment situation of 4% (4K / 90K of the rest of tech capacity in WA with almost half of it - 40K - being just one employer - MS). So it would be very hard to choose and pick and negotiate on a new position, if any.

- a 10%, 4K (judging by various sources, 4K is probably a bit more than 10% of Google employees in CA) layoff from Google would just result in a hiring frenzy by the rest of the 500K industry trying to fill the positions.

We have a 4% unemployment rate locally and there are signs everywhere for all sorts of jobs - its pretty damn good. Most common complaint of any company in Seattle is they can't find enough people to hire. Even a 4k layoff would easily get absorbed (though at different rates, and many would probably get worse pay, since AMZN is at the top of the pay scale here).

Amazon's only at the top due to stock appreciation. Lyft, Airbnb, Google, Facebook, and Uber (all of which have offices of varying sizes in the Seattle area) pay better than Amazon.

Agree overall, but there are a LOT of other employers in Seattle, including lots of the big guys. In general, a layoff would be similar to the bay area experience for a talented dev.

Yeah- I know very few people who lost jobs in '99, even fewer who lost jobs in '08. At least of people who are in tech roles, as opposed to on the periphery. But everything slows down. Everyone stops looking for a better job, people stop quitting and people stop hiring. Hunker down for a year or two, weather the storm, then carry on.

> and nobody had any significant issues promptly finding a new job (with a salary increase usually :)

Way to disprove the myth of upper middle class security!

Amazon has non-competes?

Important point here is that WA and almost all US states do have it while CA (pretty much an exception) - doesn't. Specifically to AMZN - i remember some horror story mentioned here on HN, and googling also brings some stories.

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