I keep reading articles that "This is a robust healthy and booming economy" and layoffs only affect "white collar" workers. Must of the commentary has been "Yeh, screw those entitled lazy no good techies with their high TC!" Is it true? Or are tech companies just the ones in the spotlight? Should I even bother with upping my leet skillz or should I pivot into blue collar?
Tech is primarily growth stock which has an inverse relationship with interest rates (canary in coal mine). Plus they’re 1st to apply tech to meet internal needs which means they’ll gain efficiency quicker with AI
The Fed wants to slow down wage growth to address inflation. See here https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/19/23550856/wage-growth-inflation-federal-reserve Tech workers have inflated salaries and there are millions of them. The fastest way to reduce salaries across the board is to layoff thousands and then fill those same positions for less $. Keep in mind that no one is talking about reducing or capping the compensation of C-level executives, only the plebs should make less money.
I don't think there are actually millions of us? Maybe a few hundred thousand? Unless we're counting all the tech support personnel at our companies. For example Salesforce has like 80k employees but only like 5k devs
@Salesforce, you can't argue with facts with a chair force warrior. Therro is the type, who would believe a lot of things being pushed out in the media, like no climate change or US economy is great.
Tech companies also pouring a lot of cash into AI
The ones closest to the fire get burned first, just wait until AI can do construction jobs.
"AI" will not be able to do construction jobs for a long time Dexterity is one of the most challenging problems in robotics Anyone good with their hands is safe from the AI apocalypse
https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-layoffs-worried/ https://www.npr.org/2024/01/28/1227326215/nearly-25-000-tech-workers-laid-off-in-the-first-weeks-of-2024-whats-going-on Ad revenue is declining, so layoffs are used to juice the stock with buybacks to keep investors interested. This means a cheaper and more compliant workforce, and execs and shareholders get bonuses. This also funds AI investments because AI doesn't protest or file discrimination complaints.
They need their balance sheets to look nice so their stonks can go up more
Apocalypse Now End of Days Game Over 🍄☁️
During the pandemic the rest of the economy laid off millions of workers while tech flourished and saw insane hiring. Now the market is just correcting. Tech over hired. Some companies have double the head count that they need and they need to adjust back to reality. It sucks but it’s a natural cycle
A large number of people who got laid off in the pandemic were being paid by the government more than what they were making in their job without doing any work. Small businesses (hair salons, plumbers, etc) got PPP. Similar thing. Get paid without doing the work. Tech workers are not getting any of that. The expectation is that tech workers are highly paid, so they should be fine (hope no one read those FOMO blind housing post and over leveraged themselves in a mortgage they can't afford if one of the two lose their job)