(Multiple rounds of laying off people isn't treating only those people poorly, but also increasing stress for the people who remain, knowing they can suddenly be laid off as well.)
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-layoffs-cut-jobs-exce... (“A major Alphabet investor said the company should cut even more jobs and address 'excessive' pay in the wake of mass layoffs”)
(Edit: retracted an unnecessarily snarky statement)
(I admit Congress needs to get its shit together)
I'm from the UK so while we do have layoffs, like much of Europe we have relatively good employment protections. The government here don't tend to do layoffs, but do tend to use contractors significantly more than most businesses and do flex their contractor base up and down.
Spot on about the contractors. The city I live in contains some of the larger data processing hot-spots of the German government (not so much in terms of large number-crunching server farms, but in terms of ever changing complicated business logic running at high volume) and there's a crazy number of consultancies serving that market and nobody else. But ironically those are the safest jobs nonetheless, because that demand could only ever go away in total state collapse.
(Risk management is a component of my work)
Indeed, and I am under no such illusions. But it's silly to live in fear of. Hubris would be thinking that your organization or relationship is special.
7 years of plenty and 7 years of famine.
I do understand it’ll be lower, but the GS pay system isn’t that clear to outsiders
Large corps spanning hundreds of countries are managed primarily by finance arbitragers who use cross border differences in labor costs/interest rates/tax rates/govt regulations/freebies/tariffs etc to keep the lights on. As they get faster and faster at responding and taking advantage of these constant changes world wide, these methods come to dominate decision making, especially during uncertain times.
So dont worry about what they are doing. It will never make sense unless you spend time reading financial statements every day. Just move to whereever they are hiring. And they are always hiring.
You’re either wealthy enough to not realize how infeasible this is for most people over 25, or you’ve got a serious case of tech industry Stockholm syndrome. I’ll continue to vet my employers.
Tons of reasons people can't just up and migrate at the drop of a hat.
You spelled "exploitable" wrong.
If IT goes that way, I would rather move to the countryside and grow my own food, than become an international wage slave who moves wherever our rich overlords want.
As I indicated, at the beginning of your career as a young person without a family or much tying you down, moving to a place where you're more likely to get a job in your field obviously makes complete sense, but that's not who we're talking about here. These are professionals-- many in their mid to late careers-- that got laid off, largely without notice. Being expected to abandon your life, mid-career to flock to the latest career hotspot because we complacently allow large established employers to pick up and discard large numbers of employees at their convenience-- demanding loyalty and offering none in return-- is not the same thing.
> Millions of people leave their spouses, kids and parents to move to another country for work.
Millions of people also have nutritional rickets.
> If you're ambitious/hungry enough, you'll do whatever it takes.
If you think system this rewards ambition anywhere close to as much as it rewards people already within the existing power structures, you're fooling yourself. Tech is no different than many other industries: it treats less privileged classes like donkeys while the privileged sit on top with a carrot on a stick being sure to let them get a bite every now and again when their frustration starts impacting their output. Of course there are individual success stories you can cherry pick to make it seem like reality for the majority, but you could take the worst NBA free-thrower and cherry pick them a perfect record.
I completely agree that moving to the tech city _du jour_ caters to the demographic of mid-20 "anywheres". Having a family, long-term friends or obligations such as elderly care rules you out. Or god forbid: A time-consuming hobby or in general something apart from work that gives meaning to your life.
And that's exactly the point! You only get those high wages when you put in the 60–80 hours a week (or 40 very focused hours a week) that you can spend if you live for your work. To the employer, such dependent, driven employees are very valuable. Much more than some family father who comes in for 20 hours a week and is often tired and just wants to get back home to play with his children.
The cycle repeats itself though. The leas desirable Google becomes, the more talent is freed up into startups, some of which eventually will offer something similar.
As startups run on venture funding, I'm not so sure there will be a wellspring of new positions generated for those hit by the layoffs, this time around.
There is no job security in this market right now. Even if you have a job, you can be replaced quickly.
Might as well just don't think about it, and prepare for the worst if you are anxious about the future.
Based in Europe, I'm not seeing this here.
How is this not just "business"? That's what Google is.
Granted, they make billions of dollars a quarter and it won't hurt them to keep employees around.
But every company I've ever worked for over the last decades has laid people off, made others nervous, etc.
It may sound harsh but they aren't a charity. People will be laid off, others will be nervous they may be next.
If you are looking for a company where everyone just happy hums along with no fear of job loss, those don't exist.
Except maybe in the Government.
Look, if a company is going under, everyone can understand they have to lay off huge number of folks (otherwise, they'll lay off everyone). But laying people off when you're profitable just because you want to be more profitable..?
We need some regulation for it, the problem is what regulation. But I don't think it's controversial to say that this behavior shouldn't be encouraged (despite the fact that it is not illegal, and very few would say that it should be illegal).
There is one large shift happening now in the industry, to AI. Google will need tons of talent to rise to the challenge. There have been other such shifts before (social, mobile). In the past, Google handled these shifts very differently, by retraining and reorganizing engineering staff, which had for the most part been hired for its generalist ability and could therefore jump to other areas. The theory was that there wasn't a need to know the domain too much, since you were going to reinvent it anyways. It worked exceptionally well for a lot of things. People there didn't build data centers using techniques from the field, they didn't build maps like ESRI or Navteq, etc.
Now it seems to handle it differently, through layoffs that give their employees clear signals that the company will look outside for talent first. Employees are no longer valued as adaptable generalist hires but as narrow-function cogs.
That's a strategic mistake, because the AI field is still so nascent and full of hacks that generalists able to handle novel challenges in innovative ways are so sorely needed. It isn't a mature space at all and outside hires - at the scale that will be needed - will almost certainly be of lower quality and productivity.
What would make sense if they wanted to increase profits: routinely cut low performers to keep people motivated to do their best, and completely drop entire business lines that are losses for the company. It doesn't seem like either thing is happening. By their own admission, it's not the lowest performers that get cut ("role eliminations"), and businesses that cause losses are expected to continue operating with less staff. Staff cuts don't fix structurally lossy businesses, they just make them limp longer. It seems like it's setting up these businesses for a long and painful agony.
(VC funded is no different of course, that's just a shortcut to arrive at the optimism-race without ever going through "this is going well")
That's the foundation of a good company until some MBA type comes and takes over. Then it is not about the work you do but the metric you are judged upon.
And the metrics for Google Assistant are not great. And neither are the metrics for a lot of google projects. But the team and fascination behind their technologies are the only roots keeping them from being X'd.
This is why Android and Chrome will continue to be heavy handed. The current CEO came from over there and started/led the team. But things like Google Search will always be judged by the numbers and metrics, not by the ideas of connecting people with info.
(I ranted. But to answer your question, go to place that is a darling of the power broker.)
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/11/techs-new-business-model-do-...
My dad was in a different field and when the company he worked for did layoffs the company was in a serious financial state and in danger of just folding entirely and also the employees had a say in how layoffs were implemented. Until I started working in tech I had assumed that was the norm but now I realize that that amount of respect for the employees from leadership was the exception (at least at large companies).
The best and brightest will start looking for greener grass the second the first layoff round hits, no matter what.
Companies that offload the risk of bad management decisions to employees instead of investors are not any employee's friend.
If the company begins to sink, so be it, the whole family goes down together (or flee as they see fit).
It would make a company hesitant to hire — they would have to think very long term making a decision like that. Perhaps companies would train (re-train) their employees if the jobs or company evolve.
Interesting though that, in the U.S. at least, the relationship we have with our employer is perhaps 180 degrees from that of the relationship we have with our family. That seems a little sad.
(Reminded suddenly of Tim's speech at the end of The Office (U.K.) — pass me a hanky. https://youtu.be/5AlZ-ZYbbPU)
Maybe it wouldn't even be a loophole: everyone would just have to actually go freelance and have no employee protections.
I wonder if any country has anything close to layoffs being illegal and how that went.
Works fine for France, it's very hard to do layoffs there, to the point that a common myth is that they're illegal there. 7th largest GDP. Unemployment rate is at 7% (about 2x the USA), but it's also not the existential risk it is in the US - you are given 75% of whatever your pay was for up to 2-3 years.
> Massive incentive to do whatever you can to only use contractors or whatever. Somehow classify your employees as self employed, something like that.
Going back to France, they'll fine the hell out of a company that did that. Misclassifying your employees to abuse the system is enforced there.
As an American, I am extremely jealous of France's employee protections. Even the most leftist states like CA pale in comparison to the protections the French have.
Salaries are low, unemployment was high for a long time (and still is, especially for the youth), companies make massive use of contractors (via big consulting companies) and getting a permanent contract is very difficult (without which getting a mortgage is pretty much impossible).
Once you have your permanent contract, it's fine, but for newcomers to the job market, it's hell.
This isn't relevant when we're talking about individual welfare. France is 23rd for nominal GDP per capita and 26th for PPP.
Which is still good! A lot of the countries near the top are petrostates or tax havens. But not the US.
If it were mandated, but somehow nothing else changed, then it would be unattractive to hire. If other things also changed, not necessarily.