layoffs.fyi is a bloodbath with Disney, and Meta today conducting another round of layoffs with multiple rounds already. Companies have several goals in doing these but the one I don’t see talked about much is wage suppression. This effort to artificially flood the market with talent is a direct response to the Great Resignation in 2021-2022. Companies want to drive wages down. Take a look at job postings and they’re already lower in base salary than they were just a year ago despite the enormous amount of inflation that makes those same wages worth a fraction of what they once were. This comes on top of years of free coding, designing, and data science programs from Google and others that aim to increase the supply of workers so they can slowly lower wages. Where that effort is largely on the junior-mid-level side, the layoffs target senior and beyond since those roles command the highest pay. We now have staff and principals who aren’t “good enough” to get those roles, competing for senior ones. And senior players now competing for mid level. This is like what we saw in 2008 and beyond where entry-level roles across all industries were filled by experienced people who had lost jobs or were forced out of retirement. This will continue until tech wages are no higher than their business counterparts in marketing and outside of tech. #layoffs #salarynegotiation
There is probably some truth to this. But long term it’s pretty foolish for them if that’s what they are going for. No juniors today means no new seniors tomorrow. They will have to pay a premium for seniors after things settle down because there will be less of them. Also doubt wages will ever be as low as marketing. The barrier to entry, skills required, and value created just isn’t there for non technical and non sales IC positions.
Never underestimate the lack of long term thinking skills in a shareholder or CEO
Companies have only been making short-term decisions for years. The wage has nothing to do with value created. If designers and engineers were payed according to the value they created they would all be millionaires. Value is concentrated in the hands of the rich.
This has always been the case with Tech companies. It’s just that some of them weren’t aware of it or blind wasn’t there to discuss this openly. Salaries were as per the industry standards until 2021! Some GenZ folks wouldn’t know that there are salaries which are less than 200k
Is this wage suppression or just a reality check and calibration?
Reality check in what sense? No one in tech is paid fairly compared to the value they provide. Engineers, PMs, and designers were paid a bit closer to the value, but now are being pushed towards average. It’s all part of wealth concentration
Except revenues are also expected to fall. If revenue falls, profit falls and shareholders are not happy. Ultimately, the company has the fiduciary duty to make more profit for their shareholders. The lesson here is to become the shareholder. You can start small and keep buying shares until you meet your goals (e.g. you have enough shares that pay dividends of $60K per year) This is how ordinary people have become wealthy. If you have enough shares in a company, you may get a say in how it is run.
Do you have any evidence of this or is it yet another conspiracy theory? Companies dumping valuable employees to affect the larger market makes no sense. No business thinks like that.
In 2014 Apple and Google settled a collusion lawsuit over hiring each other’s workers and trying to drive down wages. It’s naive to think that these companies are not working together again in a mutually beneficial fashion. https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion Look at any of the hundreds of thousands of employees laid off in the past year. Are all of them “non valuable?” Workers are replaceable and companies assume (correctly) that if they fire some of their good engineers they can easily hire the fired engineers from their competitor at a cheaper price than they would have been able to were they still employed. Here’s the wiki on the subject if you want to dive deeper: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation
They did not collude to lay off people, only 2 companies agreeing not to poach each other's employees. What you are claiming now is an industry wide conspiracy to dump employees, losing valuable talent in the process. This is so against their self interest that it's absurd. And you have shown me that you have absolutely no proof. I have my answer.
Zoomer discovers the concepts of demand and supply
Really funny coming from Zillow, a company that profits off landlord’s artificially constricting housing supply by horsing homes.
How is buying investment properties as a landlord and then renting it an artificial supply restriction? Btw being a landlord is historically unprofitable nowadays.
This is why tech workers need to unionize.
Does everyone on blind suffer from a recency bias? These things are cyclical. Salaries will drop during the bust and come back again the next boom. Happened before and will happen again
I think companies will be happy to suppress wages, but that’s not the overarching goal of these layoffs. When companies can no longer innovate and have no growth to show they focus on the things that can boost their stock in the short term. Layoffs are an extremely easy way to boost stock price, so are stock buy backs. This was extremely popular in the 90s with all the dinosaur companies Oracle, IBM, GE, etc That’s what companies are doing right now. You can already see it working, especially with Meta stock.
Even gardeners are charging 30% more than 4 years ago. Programmers will continue to make high income.
“This will continue until tech wages are no higher than their business counterparts in marketing and outside of tech.” Were you born in 99 or 00?
79
I guess op is outside tech…