Bitcoin Forum

Not a day goes by without a tech company announcing major job cuts. Today Paypal and Block (both payment service providers) have announced a total of 3500 job cuts, and recently Salesforce, Microsoft, SAP, Google, Ebay etc. have also done so. According to https://layoffs.fyi, 25,000 documented tech jobs have already been cut this year.

What do you think? Is it just a shrinkage and normalization after the strong build-up of the workforce during Corona or a long-term trend that will accelerate through the use of AI?

I guess it's mostly because of recession and general economic downturn. AI as the reason for layoffs? Can't think of any tech professional which could be replaced by AI right now. However, I can't exclude it can happen over time with AI becoming more advanced.

I've read several articles recently that AI is indeed now a factor. Not yet the main factor in layoffs, but some of the jobs, especially in administration, can easily be replaced by AI. Also, developers are increasingly under pressure due to AI.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/16/ai-job-losses-are-rising-but-the-numbers-dont-tell-the-full-story.html

It may partly be due to AI, but no one can really replace human workers when it comes to logic and problem solving. Sure, AIs can do a lot of specialized tasks more efficiently and timely, but hurdles along the way are only solved by humans with enough experience in the field. AI is still in its infancy, and I don't think that's the reason for the job cuts in the tech industry. They may have just overestimated their needs at a given time in order to stay profitable, and found out that they can make do without X percent of the workforce and still produce the same results for more profits.

I've just seen only the PayPal layoffs and Salesforce but this is a sign that there's actually something going on wrongly on the tech side.

It's about many of these systems and processes that can be replaced by AI. Like if there are lots of customer service staff on a company, AI and chat bots can replace them and can handle many of these queries at the same time and that has happened for several companies. So, it can be a big factor that with the emergence of AI, many of these staff have been replaced with an automated process and AI. But that's just a factor and one big reason could just be that there's really an economic downturn being experienced on the industry.

Personally I don't think it's time for AIs for being the reason for layoff in any job yet because it's still a speculation that AIs will take this jobs but not now.

The number is quite a whole lot of people and this action from my perspective might be as a result of capital intensive job and not labour intensive, do the company must have look at the rate of jobs handled by this people and it's running a loss so it have to let go of some people as far as it can do without them.

Although this account might also be as a result of recession in the economy but still doesn't warrant such high number of layoff maybe the CEOs are looking into other area and not the tech aspect anymore.

These companies are often in quite high profitability, so they could probably spare this excess slack - but they do have a legal duty to their shareholders to make the maximum profits possible. Businesses can also change over time and a dynamic business is much more likely to survive in the long run. Those who do not adapt will die out and even more jobs might be lost in that scenario. Then some business sectors just disappear entirely, which means new avenues for profits must be found or the remaining departments could be better optimized. These companies are back on a high after having rather huge dips over the last years, at least in the stock market, which showed that they are not infallible to the ebbs and flows of the economy either.

back then they hired so many people they do hiring spree in weekly basis now they are firing people because they consider it to be ineffective, they realized the growth of their company doesn't go in line with their hiring rate, i think its kinda normal, remember back then so much of these large company including FAANG are hiring like there is no tomorrow, also accepting so much interns, at that time when around pandemic, there are so many increase of people spending towards digital thing thats why these companies are so motivated they thought its the best time to grow the company and therefore tries do everything their company can and that requires workforce which is the reason they are doing hiring spree in the first place.
right as have stated by many of these big companies higher up, we are entering tech winter, there's literally no entry position available in the department of IT of these big companies, it have nothing to do with AI though in my opinion, but well honestly AI could also help speeding up the work flow of their employees that means increasing productivity while also opens up the chance to further reduce those budget for paying salary. so in conclusion i think its just these company trying to reduce the budget for salary in general.

I believe economic recession is the only factor that can make company to reshuffle their management or reducing man power. Because economic recession has caused many damages to the financial system of most society and the only way to get rid of such thing is reducing manpower. Afterwards there is no law holding company not to hire and fire who ever they like provided there is a good reason for that.

Another reason I also see that can cause such deployment is the new revolution tech that involves the use of AI to replace human work. Because it is estimated that more human will loose their jobs to Al. and am beginning to see reasons to it. Most people still doubt the capacity of AI dominating the word but I see it coming.

Even Elon Musk warns about it, saying that he is afraid that a time will come where people will depend on government to pay its citizens salary for feeding. Because there will be few jobs left for human to do. although I have searched for the exact video but couldn't see it,
but here (https://fb.watch/pVpt00JjVJ/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v) is a similar case.

Tech Layoffs linked to the significant expansion of these services after the Corona pandemic and the return of life to normal, we can return to the data of 2020 and 2021 to know the size of the growth.

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/blog/easset_upload_file49671_1493589_e.png

These companies try to reduce non-core workers because they can be easily hired, but it is rare for them to fire core developers and security staff.

Looking at the layoffs data is wrong, in contrast, these companies expanded in hiring more.

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/01/31/kimsw.png

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/01/31/ki679.png

here in the UK we can even see it happen with banks and energy providers customer service call centres
their manned call centres are being replaced with web-based chat which is being operated by AI or outsourced to lower paid countries

theres a big thing happening with real location bank branches with in-branch staff asking walk-in customers to "go online" to open/close accounts or use a ATM for deposits, withdrawals. and months later listing bank branch closure due to lack of foot-fall of customers entering bank branches to use real cashier-tellers in-branch for services, thus deemed as no customers needing in-branch services

even retail stores are replacing manned check-outs with self check-outs
though retailers are still employing people to walk the aisles to fill online orders to be delivered/picked-up
(cashier employing model becomes order fulfilment model)

...
as for covid chain reaction on employment
there was a period where people could work from home, which caused the government to think there were careers for disabled people to work from home. right now the UK government are doing a u-turn on disability where they now think all disability have no excuse to avoid work.
thinking there is more work opportunity in the market to cover even disabled people re-entering employment.

however whats been seen now is those in remote working, outsource their own work tasks to freelancers in lower paid countries. and the domestic employee then requests more work tasks to then outsource more work to lower income countries to be freelancers of the employee.
meaning the domestic employment of remote workers drop because managers see one worker achieving multiples of work tasks
thus taking work away from the domestic remote working market, due to outsourcing work to AI or lower paid countries

What do you mean? It is precisely in logic and problem solving that AI clearly surpasses us. That's what chess is all about and it's been almost 30 years since Deep Blue beat Kasparov.

Now there may have been layoffs for AI but tech companies are clear examples of inflated companies with "jobs" that produce nothing. You can see a clear example in the following 2 minute video: Day in Life of a TWITTER Employee | Joe Rogan Podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggvm9s19ve8)

That is a 6-figure salary for having a meeting, eating vegan in the office, doing yoga, playing foosball and drinking tap wine while relaxing and looking at the sky. This has only been maintained because of the proximity of these companies to the printer by the Cantillon effect.

I think Elon musk is the reason why all these layoffs are happening. He fired like 75% of all twitter employees and the company is still functional.

So many businesses are also taking this approach. They made a plan many months ago about how to restructure and survive and now they are laying people off. Also the stock holders will be happy because less employees means more profits and higher stock price.

Are we near to the end of capitalism? there were robberies steals $12K in merchandise from Watts Nike store (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqHsEv-5LFI) and no one cares with that.

I don't think that was her real life when she works in Twitter, surely the company have all the facility, but she was just create a video that show the good things on there. "We" can do same, show if we can get free coffees, free lunch, free side dish, friendly colleagues, etc.

involvement in the development of AI technology may also be a small part of the reason. But the bigger factor may indeed be due to the ongoing global economic downturn.  The recession is really happening. Which makes the level of people's ability or purchasing power and spending power decrease over a period of time.

But for now AI has not replaced many human jobs but it does have the potential to replace many human jobs in the future. Or it could be that large companies already have AI technology that can indeed replace some areas of work in the company. And maybe the technology has not been published yet.

This is a sign that the tech industry isn't what it used to be and that it's going to be the trend now that there's going to be less people doing jobs there because of automation and it's a sign for many young people to do trade school and learn something that's skill based like automotive maintenance, plumbing and maybe even hairdressing, with those trade skills, you won't have to worry too much about doing side hustles that will definitely see an increase in competition with these tech lay offs.

Maybe both. Or maybe the effect of the pandemic over the "Big Tech" is kinda exaggerated. The pandemic ended in the first half of 2022(in the western world). Why didn't the big corporations start firing tech employees in 2022?
"Bullshit jobs" are a thing in big bureaucratic structures like the major corporations. AI will help the "Big Tech" to cut all the "bullshit jobs" and increase efficiency. Producing more with less people has always been the core principle of industrial capitalism. High tech capitalism is no exception to this rule.
Maybe the higher interest rates and the expectations of a future recession are also playing a big role in the decision to cut labor costs.

With the record highs we are witnessing in the stock market, I would have not expected to see these volume of layoffs in the technological sector of the United States, to be honest.
Perhaps, there are some processed which are already being replaced with Artificial intelligence I those companies, which we are not aware of. It could be also some sentiment of greed from investors and the CEOs to increase profits in this stock bullish season.

In the end, I am sure it is all about profits.
Though, the fact this is mostly happening within the technological sector of the United States is indeed interesting. It could lead to anyone to assume this is a consequence of the implementation of new technologies.

Even though many of those employees certain my signed confidential agreements when they left the company, I would like one of them to speak up and give the general public about what is going on with technological companies.

The labor market is dynamic thanks to the laws that make it possible, unfortunately people have become just numbers that some "genius" CEOs and managers adjust in order to protect the company's profits. Therefore, I would not conclude that the beginning of this year is somewhat more dramatic in this regard, given that the link you provided shows that in 2023, slightly more than 262 000 workers in that sector were laid off.


I would not completely exclude AI as one of the reasons why such companies need fewer and fewer people, but we can also attribute it to the current economic situation, which is not very good around the world - and the fact that large technology companies are planning long in advance and may be preparing for some things that could be realized in the future.

There is already talk about how the market could react if Trump becomes president, and given that this man reacts very impulsively, there could be very serious disturbances in the markets around the world.

Look around - this isn't a "shrinkage" or "normalization." It's the market's reality check after years of unbridled growth. Paypal, Block, Salesforce, and Google layoffs are warnings, not adjustments. Are we reverting to pre-Corona levels? Think again. We're watching the industry evolve. AI integration is a paradigm change. Companies are restructuring for efficiency and creativity, not just cutting fat. Don't worry; this is adaptability and survival of the fittest. The 25,000 jobs? A change story, not a statistic. See the writing on the wall beyond the numbers. As tech evolves, so must we

If we take a couple of steps back, in the grand scheme of things, this might indeed be it, although industries have their own struggles of course as factors.

The high time preference brought about by soft and cheap money causes all kinds of unsustainable investments. The proximity that you mentioned must have made everything worse. Taking risks is easy with a money that loses value fast and a government that has full control of its supply and distribution.

In particular, however, I suppose the recent pandemic, inflation, AI, and other factors are all contributory.

I guess it's normal.

Although I never own a startup, but my assumption is when the startup got bigger and bigger until it become really popular and can sustain without need to take care the micro task, it's when the entry level jobs aren't important anymore.

In that level, a big company needs senior research and development, marketing and sales.

It's returning to normal, the madness in covid hiring had to stop at one point.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/22/tech/big-tech-pandemic-hiring-layoffs/index.html


https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/01/31/kKlGT.png

Everyone went nuts in hiring IT related workforce, some going completely nuts and hiring more than even the wildest expansion would ever require,  I work in logistics and while my company wasn't that bad at this one of our partner bought maintenance services alone that would have been enough for a business 100 times their size, they are now paying a contract for 8 or 10 months left in which basically the technicians come and look at each other. We have a case of unpacked servers that were never needed and probably will rot in the storage, unless we would be able to buy ourselves those, or maybe even receive as a gift  ::)

It's not something special it's business realizing they have expanded their workforce well beyond their profitability limits and that there is no growth that would ever make those inflated numbers profitable.

It's a bold claim that Elon's approach to Twitter is a role model for others. It is true that, from a technical point of view, Twitter works even without the 75% of employees who were laid off. However, the quality of posts on Twitter has declined massively, in particular there is a lot of spam, bots and hate messages from all sides. I have been active on Twitter for several years and have noticed a big change over the last year or so. Many large advertising partners are also dropping out.

Good, I see article after article about people refusing to return to work and getting canned. Good.

End-stage-capitalism, basically. Americans are going to be at each other's throats at the crescendo. But that is going to be interested to watch for the rest of the world. But ultimately in the long-term, AI will bring more jobs than it currently is taking. So I do not think that the major job cuts have anything to do directly with AI. I think it is regularly just cutting corners wherever and whenever it pleases the stock holders.

Market conditions are as uncertain now as they have ever been in the past. Even more so, looking at the world situation. I guess the companies you mentioned are preparing for shrinkage, if anything.

i still remember elon being called out for firing too much people back then definitely not a role model for other companies added with the fact that twitter was so bloated with too much employee doing nothing as implied by elon i think back then he make tweet about this quite frequently and he decided to fire and also eliminate bots, well the part about eliminating bots fails miserably though right now twitter is just as infested with bots as before even in his own tweets which is kinda ironic.
from the data alone, its not because large corporatino following elon move its just that there are simply too much unused workforce while the productivity still stagnating, i think they've hit the diminishing return as a result of their mass hiring.
therefore the mass lay off, not to mention its always the entry to middle position that got laid off, hopefully things getting better.

In the past, establishing companies was difficult and unsuccessful on average, and it still is so, but social media highlighted success to the point that everyone thought it was easy, and financing policies, buying back shares, and manipulating the number of employees are all things that helped accelerate the growth of companies in a short period.

This may include tasks that anyone, even with little experience, can perform, but outsourcing may not be appropriate for most remote work sources and will not significantly change employment numbers.

Yeah, I think it's waaay too early for AI to be replacing any workers, much less ones in Silicon Valley.  That might happen eventually--though it remains to be seen--but I'd imagine that there would be more employees hired to do AI projects and such before they get axed in favor of AI.  The tech just isn't there yet as far as I know.

OP might be right about the COVID theory, but it's not like I've ever followed hiring trends in any sector so I don't know if tech companies took on too many workers back then.  From what I've read and been told, the economy is fairly strong so I don't think these layoffs are a sign of some decrease in demand for tech-related stuff.  Who knows?  If I was really curious (and honestly, I have only a mild interest in what goes on in the tech world), I'd probably search some of the tech news sites because they've probably got some answers, or at least some educated guesses.

Also, in the grand scheme of things, 25,000 workers might not be that big a deal to the sector.  Tell that to the people who got laid off, I know, but it isn't as though all of these companies are slashing their workforce.

I don't know where you work but where I work I have no tap wine available, no foosball table, no yoga and I can't go out to drink tap wine while I relax looking at the sky during work hours. That video is not the only one, there were several videos of that style at that time. The original is no longer there and I guess the author ended up deleting it after being fired. Musk fired 6,000 people or 80% of the staff, so what you see in the video is a true reflection of what was happening.

Yea, I think from what I have researched, most layoffs in the 1069 companies that has done this, has to do with a global slowdown in the growth in the IT industry. (They made less profit in the last couple of years)

Companies are spending less on tech and more on the basic operating functions of their business. The rising inflation and the decline in income during the Covid pandemic, has forced them to cut cost on expensive tech upgrades or improvements.  

one thing that is common with most firms is that it's there general nature to look out for ways of cutting down cost and one of the easiest ways of doing so is by laying off workers and and look out for ways to work with a limits number of staff and at the same time meet the requirement of the job.

The major thing to take out of this is that as much as AI is replacing some work and workers are being played off, their are individuals in those firm that regardless of the need of the company to lay off workers, they will never consider dropping them for any reason because of the value that they have. And this should only challenge you to become more valuable and skilled at whatever tech job you're into so when the possibility of laying off workers comes in, you wouldn't become the nearest option to be considered.

Not really.

It's more because these companies tend to over-hire in the past. Why? I don't know. Mahybe they gave their recruitment team too much power? Anyway, it bloated the workforce at these companies, and when projects fail or products are cut or services are shut down, the entire division behind it is going to get laid off. So it doesn't really have much to do with AI.

There could be different factors, currently with the technology AI and machines are replacing people so most of them aren't really needed anymore if it already configured how to navigate the task, or else just the company having a hard time with the expenses and once of the best way is to remove manpower just to recover with their current status. Still at the end its all about the profit gains of the company so its their decisions we are just slaves of corporate world so ideally not being dependent on this.

This has been a trend and it is going to continue but at the some point, I think that the time for these companies to have more demand again and going to have more manpower again will come but at least not for now. As said specifically for PayPal, the proliferation of many startups changing the ways or having better solutions for payments have come. I think that there have been hundreds if not thousands of them yearly that have been established and most of them have been talking about providing digital solutions for quicker and cheaper payments. That's what I've been seeing with many of the startups that I don't know whether they truly solve problems or they simply are providing a better alternative options against PayPal.

Obviously in the companies where I work there's no tap wine, football table, quiet place etc too. :D

But what I mean is, we can create a video about the bright side in our working place even though not as fancy as Twitter's company.

It's weird to be honest, why they need to hire people just for come to their company, enjoy the facilities and get paid for that? :P

If the country has a laws about AI, not many people will dare to use AI for profit oriented purpose. There are many people sell their design using AI, even though it sounds stupid why people want to buy AI generated images, but if the government can being strict with copyright issues, people will scared.

its still a bit related to the effect of the use of AI because the reason why most companies hire much workers at the outset is because most of the work require human to do them and with the use of AI in doing most of those jobs, its just normal for the firms to lay off her workers just so they can cut down cost.

But that is not to say that the advent of AI is the major reason why tech firm are laying off her workers because of them have thier particular reason why they drop thier workers but regardless, the main reason id still centred on cutting down cost

This is what happens when companies do not need their workforce and my assumption is due to the automation of jobs due to the technological evolution. It doesn't mean these people can't find a job unless they have no other skills that is what needed in the present. Employment in the IT field always has been a double edged squad, you can make more money than other jobs and suddenly your job security can be in jeopardy.

Yeah bruh, capitalisms is going to die...every century now
You do realize you're here because you like Bitcoin which is the pure essence of capitalism, where the one with the cash buys and earns some more and the owe with nothing (no capital will be forever a no coiner just as poor as he was before?

And furthermore, you remember how Bitcoin as supposed to kill middleman, kill banks, all that because there was no need for them anymore?
Look what bitcoin bought, thsoaudns of jobs exactly in the fields that it was supposed to destroy!

Also, all doom and gloom lovers, postpone your party:
https://apnews.com/article/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-layoffs-labor-02b17c02f52ff4f68090a3f67f9e45c8

You are conflating the concept of money with an economic system (that I happen to disagree with). Bitcoin is a currency and even communist countries have currencies. I see no direct relation to capitalism.

Tell me, how is it that Europe and the US both have free markets and yet in the US, there are no adequate safety nets for individuals who get into financial troubles? Is there really any excuse for charging a desperate, diabetic man thousands of dollars per month just so that he can keep himself alive, with medication that costs pennies to make? Or lets talk about the cash incentives for privatized prisons in the US to keep as many people as possible locked up? China has less incarcerations than the US and they have a population of over 1.4 Billion. Seems strange, don't you think? Why base your economic system on the concept: the greedier the better? That only makes sense when looked at from the perspective of a business owner who does not want his employees asking for more money (Although lets not talk about the concept of lobbying right now).

And you are changing the narrative as you see fit


Your words in the last month alone, you have always treated Bitcoin as an investment asset so how come the sudden change?


Because that's what a free market is!
Just like Bitcoin, you lose your keys nobody is able to help you!
What's the commie protection plan for Bitcoins? BIP-CCP?  ;D


You actually have one point of bitcoin being anything close to a communist system
- central authority
- planned economy
- fixed prices
and not a capitalist one
- complete free market with nobody supervising a transaction
- prices determined by supply and order
- individual with capital can buy and individual without can wait in line at faucet
- no tax on the wealthier, no extra % tax on those holding more coins, same fee if you transfer 1009 satoshi and 1 million BTC?


So you're into Bitcoin because you want to help with incarceration levels in the US, not because you want MOAR MONEY and you're not putting your capital into it to get more capital, you do it to save the Earth from the Bilderberg reptilians!  :D
Yeah right, keep lying to yourself if it makes you feel better, but that won't make falsehood real!

... and the workforce cuts continue. Today, Zoom and Okta announced to layoff 500 people altogether. Also there are rumors that Dell is planning another layoff announcement, altough they already cut 7% of workfoce in early 2023.

Beside the tech layoffs, there are a lot of job cuts in non-tech companies like UPS that announced to layoff 12,000 people few days ago.

This should have something to do with the  recent change in technology, the introduction of AI into the system. At some points, big companies will like to minimize costs of operation thereby laying off a lot of staffs and integrating this new technologies into the system which some of this new technologies are already proven to be reliable and trustworthy. Humans will still be needed at some points in this company but by laying off majority of them is just showing the need for compulsory flow with the system which every company will abide by. More of such news will be coming in the future, I won’t be surprised when they do.

Exactly that is the sad part in advancement of technology, yes its satisfying and fulfilling on how people grow or evolved in terms of technology its proven that people has capable of doing something greater than we used to be, but remember there is a saying that being too great has consequences, and that is the threat of fewer human are needed in tech companies or other companies because there is a new and popular technology which is AI and its integration is wide, it can be used mostly for anything, its great yeah it can help significantly in any task but the downside is less humans are needed, because Ai will eliminate the human errors which is not a good thing, especially for those people who's skills is only based on their current jobs. We never know what will happen in the coming days or generations, but let's see it through to the end and be ready for what will happen.

Most articles I've read attribute recent tech layoffs to a post-pandemic correction. However, I believe the impact of AI on job displacement is still limited, as it's primarily used as an assistive tool rather than for complex tasks. Therefore, its current influence is likely restricted to positions involving repetitive manual work.

Tech companies are like eager students in a fast-paced classroom, constantly upgrading their skills to keep up with the latest trends. With the rise of AI and automation, they're finding ways to work smarter, not harder. This means some roles might become redundant as tasks get automated, leading to job cuts but it's not just a COVID-19 aftermath because it's a shift towards efficiency and innovation that's shaping the tech landscape for the long haul. So, while it might seem like a setback now, it's part of the ongoing evolution of the industry right

The new tech market is being saturated. Smartphone and internet are now available to almost everyone. Social media too are saturated, the growth of facebook and x is stagnant. There's some growth potential in Africa but most of it is already covered. Online shopping is also covered and there are not much to grow.
With the emergence of AI, many job positions are obsolete. Robots are delivering and AI is running taxis. The economic slowdown quickened the replacement of human with automation, robots and AI.
This is a long term trend. The demographics is also on a down trend. The current generation might have some problems coping with change in jobs but the replacement of AI and robots are good for the future of humankind.

Maybe they have figured out something that the company still keep on working even with the lay offs. It could also be that some other job and activities maybe easily done with the use of AI technology. This is now the new trend companies tried to shorten or lessen expenses on manpower that is prone to human errors and replace 'em with the accurate and faster Artificial Intelligence. Some sort of unemployment risk right?

Poor sales by those companies which is due to drop in purchasing power of their customers prompted the downsizing of their workforce,  I don't think AI influence was responsible for their decision  to lay off, of course when the global economy pick up majority of those companies would start another round of recruitment into various positions,  meanwhile Tech jobs are one of the most sought after profession presently so I believe in no distant future all the lay off staff would definitely get a new job offer as I am aware that there many Tech start up springing out globally this would also provide job opportunities for the sacked workers.

Every company that has cut working relations with their employees has certainly found other options that can complete the work done by their employees with other things and it is more profitable to use this technology compared to using many employees which makes the company spend more to pay their employees, intelligence Man-made intelligence currently really supports today's world of work, so companies prefer to use human-made intelligence rather than humans, especially which is very difficult to regulate and requires high costs, very different from using human-made intelligence which they can manage precisely and with very few errors.

And another crisis died before it even got started

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/02/us-economy-added-353000-jobs-in-january-much-better-than-expected.html


Where were we, late stage capitalism or something?  ;D

meanwhile in the US.. hobby earners(side hustles) now have to declare hobbies as businesses
fudging the numbers

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/02/04/vH0NC.png
(image is from stompix's own chosen link, so he cant cry about picking source when it was his source he picked)
this january is not as good as last january.. so not numbers to be proud of

also the source of stompix's chosen article

declining hours meaning less full timers more part timers

Yes that jobs report was a huge surprise. The average earnings was crazy high and so was the amount of jobs added. Both were way over expectations and as a result the bond market tanked.

At one point the bonds were down 4% or so which is crazy volatile for such a deep liquid market, shows how much whipsaw there is in treasuries.

I would guess that those are the "startup culture" in some companies that were like that during the big hype period, there was a whole period between 2010-2020 where tech companies got way too much investment and they ended up getting millions and in order to attract people, they needed to compete not in salary but in these things as well.

They had to make the working conditions as well as they could, giving people whatever they think would fit them, and there was a moment where some companies even had "sleeping pods" where coders would go sleep and come back to work. That's why I think it's quite important to figure that out, if you want talent, do not give them gifts, give them the freedom and they will keep working for you, plus of course a competitive salary.

Downsizing is something that is very necessary in every organization especially when it is recommended as a way to enable the company remain relevant and successful. Most times it happens naturally, but at times there are some unforeseen circumstances that globally induce downsizing such as the covid-19. But I have something to say, if a random company is downsizing we could see it as a normal thing but if a tech company is downsizing, it shouldn't be seen as a normal thing because something is definitely wrong somewhere.

It is not all about the advent of the AI and it is not also an indication that AI is taking over the position of man in the company. Even if anyone has to allege that, they might not be completely out of order. But when downsizing comes to take company I think something else is a major factor and not AI. What I consider as the major factor is the freelancing. While there are many people who are interested in working and earning without committing 100% to a particular company. It encourages the companies to dismiss their original staff such as to get rid of some certain expenses that is being attached to staff permanency. Hire a random person and get him paid than hire one person, pay him and still owe him other gratuities.

So many tech company employ a lot of staffs druing corona and that was because the need to work remotely was very necessary, I'm not sure if there is any company that has not resume back to physically work fully except for experts that are needed remotely to perform jobs and judging by these numbers of job cuts, it's the remote jobs that are been cut off from the grid system and people that are left has to do the work of those jobs that were cut off just like the way Elon Musk did when he took over X(formaerly X).

AI might not really be the ones taken over these jobs, I still think it's too early for the artificial intellingence to take over so many jobs in these numbers, machines can't solve everything, there are still aspect of human that will be require to finish the job and I also think that AI are still in early phase to accomplish task efficiently. Even looking at some of the AI written works I have seen, it is force and not close to what human can do with many errors that can be easily detected by human, no way AI can replace human completely.

Even if we were to assume that all of those jobs lost had nothing to do with AI, I am sure companies are preparing for that possibility, and they are exploring their options and trying to identify the areas of opportunity in which AI can help them right now and on the near future, so jobs lost because of AI are coming, if not a reality already, and it is difficult to predict how the economy could work from now on if more and more people lose their jobs.

Computer Science is receiving quite the heavy beating in the corporate world, with it being one of the most vulnerable tech careers nowadays. It's gone so worse that even my friends who were comp sci graduates regretted that they ever listened to people who said it's going to be one of the best careers in 2 years time, cause now they're stuck in a rut where they're given what's basically the art degree of the IT sector.

Also sucks that major gaming companies like Activision-Blizzard and Riot Games have started laying off a large portion of their workforce. Riot Games being the most talked about as it started to let go of 11% of its total employees, some of which are actively involved in the production of their games and some of their future titles. Future's not looking bright for the tech world unless you're from the webapp development industry in which case I don't think you should be worried as the industry's still going strong. What I would really suggest to people who were under these situations right now and are worrying about their job and financial security is to learn new skills related to IT, not because you're going to drop Comp Sci or whatever, but because it will better equip you and provide you with the tools you need to still stay afloat even when the rest of your world is burning. Makes total sense yeah?

many businesses have regular events of turn-over, employee churn, removing the dead wood..

when one project finishes that specialises in certain skill, its time to move to the next project that might need a fresh mind.
yes AI makes things easier. people dont need to write 1000's of lines of code. they just type in a few descriptions of the end result they want and AI writes code for them. then they just need to refine/tweak it

google always did turn-over employee's often. if people were great at one project but not productive at the next, google doesnt keep them around forever, and projects dont continually need a full team of developers forever. its a system of get a finalised product and then move to next project, whereby only a few % stick to old project for updates

we are no longer in the era where people stay in the same job for 40 years

i think that the fact that there are less customers after covid pandemic has ended also have some roles. when covid hits everyone was so focused on online and digital stuff that they just subscribe to whatever online entertainment there is, company thinks that this growth will lasts forever, same reason why meta decided to go all in with metaverse but failed miserably anyway, they thought the future is all 100% digital but its really isnt.
so many people are getting back to their normal routine after pandemic ends, abandoning any digital service that they subscribed previously, companies realized it, the fact that they have made some massive hiring doesn't help either since the number of customers tanks. then they realized that they need to make things efficient as you said fueled with AI.
its overall really bad situation with finding job these days.

meta failed miserably with the metaverse because they just threw together a gimmick. they didnt go all-in

they could have created a proper universe where people could lease VR space to design a VR store that promotes goods which then when bought in VR, a real world product is delivered to peoples real world home.
where its like a fully interactive shopping mall and entertainment center where people can VR earn credit via operating as customer service support or sales people and create a circular economy inside metaverse..

instead it just turned into a cartoon character social chat space

..
many web3 supposed tech has yet to be discovered/utilised so getting rid of some web2 deadwood may make way for more web3 development yet to be seen

AI continues to improve and make good developments but no matter how advanced it is, it’s undeniable that human workers presence are still very vital when it comes to any kind of workforce. Although it could be partly true as you’ve said, but I guess it’s more on the remained impact from the previous pandemic wherein a lot of big companies have eventually closed, and it also adds to it the current negative economic condition of the country in general.

However, there are also some tech companies that just want to limit their employees for lesser manpower and reduced salary, so that they can use that funds instead to open more branches in the different parts or areas in the world.

The argument makes no sense to me. Normally, job cuts go hand in hand with the closing of smaller locations. At least that has mostly been the case in the past. Opening smaller locations abroad or in new markets is more cost-intensive than opening/operating a few large locations.

---

Job losses in the tech sector continue. Snap announced today that it is laying off 500 employees, 10% of its total workforce.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/05/snap-to-lay-off-10percent-of-global-workforce-around-500-employees.html

lets use rockstar(GTA) as an example
when using american talent to design the new engines that will run GTA6, after the engines are complete they then put that team to other games or lay them off, replacing them with another team that do storyboards and missions. then they hire in temps/offshore freelancers as testers, bug fixers and support staff

it is not cost intensive to set up remote locations abroad. they just contract existing remote agency staff at rates far cheaper then paying a US developers

paying high talent dev salary to do support/testing is a waste of time and money for all businesses

Yes, because in every job there are definitely layoffs, both in technology and industry, nowadays millennials are more interested in jobs that are more profitable with less risk, because technology is now more sophisticated than in the days of our youth, now millennials are more interested in working from home through the sophistication of gadgets, such as being a YouTuber, gamer, etc., because that way they don't feel pressured and no one can lay them off, because they work or make money from their own creative output without depending on the big boss. or the owner of the company so there is such a thing as layoffs.

While economic downturns undoubtedly trigger workforce reductions, attributing all reshuffles and manpower reductions solely to recessions presents a limited perspective. The contemporary business landscape demands agility, forcing organizations to adapt to diverse factors beyond economic fluctuations.

Company restructurings, mergers and acquisitions, evolving consumer preferences, and industry disruptions all necessitate reevaluating staffing needs. For instance, a shift towards online retail might necessitate streamlining brick-and-mortar operations, impacting personnel in those areas. Recognizing these various drivers paints a more nuanced picture of workforce dynamics.

The potential impact of artificial intelligence on jobs is a topic of intense discussion. While automation will undeniably displace some roles, it's crucial to remember that new opportunities will also emerge. The key lies in adaptation and reskilling. Equipping individuals with the skills necessary to thrive in an AI-driven future is essential, ensuring they remain relevant and competitive.

AI definitely plays a role into this there is no doubt about that but also you have to remember someone has to use that AI, it is not going to be the boss, there will be employees who will figure out a way to use the AI to make the product, and fix stuff.

I think it is mainly because the money isn't coming in as much as it used to. What we need to look at is the fact that during pandemic and even before, the rates were low, so people didn't want to put their money into savings, certainly not super rich people, so they invested into tech companies, startups and so forth, now that the interest is high, they don't take that risk, which left many companies without fund, which caused a lot of them to fire their employees who are getting paid a lot, the developers.

To be honest, it's pretty expected from the massive expansion that we saw during COVID. People were hired left and right, Computer Science graduates were getting paid ridiculous sign-on bonuses, and employees were pushing for WFH hard.

The unwinding of the low interest rate environment is what has caused these layoffs for the past 2 years. This year is just a continuation.

I don't anticipate it to be sustained much further though, given that rates are starting to come off again and central banks around the world will probably be more dovish following lower inflation reports. It sucks to be involved in one, that's for sure.

Tech companies are not immune to having to adapt and survive. In fact they are often at the forefront of taking risks and trying new things, which may not pay off and need to be scrapped later down the line. What you will find however is that most of those people who were laid off will have a premium company listed on their CV, enabling them to have an advantage when trying to secure new employment elsewhere. I'd even say we're past the Covid effect, these are just regular expansion and tightening that takes place, these companies just have the largest workforces but it will be happening all throughout the economy. It's the sign of weak leadership if companies do not change over time and redundancies are often part of such change.

I think the tech layoffs are a concern for the economy because most of these individuals are young and rent expensive apartments, lease expensive cars, buy ridiculously priced clothes and food...  Then suddenly they get laid off and it's unemployment.  High end retailers, apartment buildings, foreign cars...  I would think sales of all those things would take a pretty big hit as the cash flow stops pouring in.  It remains to be seen how widespread this crisis will get, but if we're in for a repeat of 2008 it would be wise for everyone to start tightening their belt as if they were the ones who just got laid off.

Job cuts like that are very unfortunate, but maybe it just means that we'll see more decentralization (tech giants getting smaller, and smaller companies getting bigger), I don't know. According to the World Economic Forum report (https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023/digest/) on the future of jobs, IT jobs are actually expected to grow, and some positions are among the fastest-growing across the job market (big data analytics, encryption, cybersecurity, AI and machine learning specialists, information security analysts). Perhaps lay-offs are in tech companies, but they're firing people who are doing mundane jobs?

Tech companies are striving so I doubt that their reason for layoffs is because of its declining overall performance. Also, IT related jobs are getting more in demand, especially that we are relying more on technologies with our day-to-day stuff. So I agree that perhaps they are cutting off jobs with minimal tasks or importance wherein in can be done with the help of technology. In this case, it'll be more convenient for these tech companies since it means less employees to pay and they can save money. And with technology, those tasks can be done faster and more efficiently.

Based on what I've searched, AI is really one of the factors of it. And most likely, admin and sale related jobs are affected by it. Since with AI, they can minimize their expenses and at the same time improve the performance in admin related tasks.


Source:

Tech layoffs continue.

Mozilla (Firefox) laid off 60 people this week. Cisco Systems 4200 people and Instacart round about 250 people. And these are just the better-known companies. This does not include many small start-ups that no longer receive follow-up financing and go out of business completely.

now i think you are scraping google search for stats... for the sake of scraping google for stats
.. so here is one

ask google what the average turn-over/churn of employees is..
it will tell you 30%+

good turn-over/churn is under 10%

people no longer stay in careers for 10 years they change jobs every 1-2 years by choice. (mainly to improve income) but especially in the under 30yo's not ready to settle into a "career"
because employers yearly pay reviews dont always offer payrises by standard, so need to swap jobs to get better pay and not get stuck in a rut
employee/employer loyalty is low

in tech this can be over 50%
its because new projects require new skills.. so they recruit per project.
EG one season of the year they are concentrating on back-end.
next season front-end/ui.. next season debug and product testing
so can go through 3 teams of skills in one year

we are no longer in the era of microsoft that keeps people around for decades regurgitating the same 'word' software with a new fancy UI every couple of years

so when there are stats that show under 10% turn-over... its not news, or worthy stats.. thats just business norm

mozilla 60 of 700 = 8.5%
cisco 4200 of 85000 = 4.94%
instacart 250 of 10,000 =2.5%

so yea, when good turnover/churn is 10%.. it appears your looking for stats just for looking for stats. without understanding employment in any economy is not where everyone stays in the same job for 45 years, nor 10 years

Well, not really! I don't google these things, they are part of my job, or better lets say, I deal with such news on a daily basis. There are a certain number of layoffs at any given time, that's quite normal, but it becomes noticeable when the news of layoffs - especially in tech - pile up and that's one of the reasons why I opened this thread here. By the way, this week alone there have been many more layoffs of well-known tech companies such as Expedia, Bumble (didn't know the dating market is also being hit so hard), Sony, Electronic Arts and many more.

point was.. stats are meaningless without context..

Tech industry is not a industry where someone stays in one workplace creating software for the same company for 45 years
most techbro's know they have to go where the next big thing is.
one year they are at netscape, then at AOL then hotmail, then yahoo then google, then at facebook then at twitter then at [insert new trend of social media platform]

lets take the gaming section of tech
once rockstar(GTA) has devs developing the back end engine, they then work on front end graphics engines, they then employ story writers to design missions and then bug testers. requiring different skill sets meaning different teams
the dev team of GTA1 for the gameboy is different to the dev team for GTA6


once a product is made the company dont need a big team to keep developing the product, they only need a small team for bugs/patches and adding new missions, features occasionally.
its dead money to keep people on the payroll twiddling their thumbs for months/years, whilst the other team do other things

heck look at the bitcoin core github. different people are lead maintainers of different sections and even they have seen people move out and be replaced. different people specialise in different things, some have full recall knowledge of the cryptography code, some are back end wallet maintainers some are UI, some are mempool maintainers, etc

heck when there is a new OS on a phone EG everyone shifted from blackberry to iphone decades ago, then google made a phone OS(android) so tech had to adapt and people upskilled and changed roles to follow the money

tech is an ever evolving industry. its not a monopoly of one product that remains a blue chip for 45 years
yep even microsoft windows 11 is not the same vista, nor that the same as windows 98 nor that the same as windows 3.1
those now employed at microsoft have a completely different skill set compared to those of windows 3.1 (30 years ago) and lots of different skill sets inbetween

its not like a baker who makes bread everyday where bread has a recipe that lasts for centuries thus secures his skillset for his entire life

..
having a degree in computer science/coding does not = job security with one company. it mean certified display of knowledge to be higher than that of some script kiddy when if comes to interviews. thus higher change of getting re-employed by another company when the project ends with a previous company

Currently, most people only depend on one source of income for their livelihood, and depend on the company where they work. So advances in technology and AI will be of particular concern, because their position could be replaced by robots. However, it is not easy for an individual to let go of his dependence on the company where he works. Being able to invest and have an independent business is a solution to facing this problem, but again this is not something that is easy enough to realize because the economic situation is not good. -Okay, where income is not balanced with expenses, it makes it quite difficult for a person to be able to start investing because let alone starting an investment, to be able to meet his daily needs, sometimes it is still lacking and he even has to take out a loan. And the same goes for when you want to start a business, where currently people's purchasing power is declining, so it will be a challenge in itself when someone wants to start their business.

people in tech are normally on the young side,no experience of having a career but have been told at university their degree=lifetime career
what they are not told is in certain industries there is no such thing as a lifetime career in the same company

they have to assume there is going to be changes to a business on short notice and be ready for it

this includes not spending all their funds frivolously but to stash some cash to cover an immediate change/incidence to avoid panic (savings for 1-6 months essentials) and invest some for longer term/wealth generation

we are not in the era where people inherit a farm from parents and work the farm all life..
we are not in the era where people learn a skillcraft/speciality work all life..

we are in a era of job shuffling, especially in retail and tech where there is an abundance of candidates. where things change

things do change, projects change, tech changes.. so expect changes.. expect businesses to change their employee to meet a businesses updated needs.

US isn't yet to announce that they're in recession while the other counterparts they have and allies have already did.

These massive tech layoffs are signs that the economy isn't doing good.  :-X

AI plays a big thing on these layoffs but it can just be a reasoning for what the actual economy and these companies are going through. Most of the employees of these companies have good salary ranges and they don't have to find another job to stick with because they're too confident.

These layoffs are going to give them the idea that whether they're tenured, trusted and have in the industry for a long time, no one has mercy on these times when the company decides to layoffs a bunch of them.

I think this will be a long-term trend in the use of AI, although not immediately but slowly it is starting to appear, but in my opinion after many jobs are replaced by AI, there will be new job opportunities, isn't that usually the case?
There will always be opportunities in every closing.

I am skeptical on the market being full of opportunities for the people being lay off because of the implementation of the artificial intelligence withit all kinds of industries, just look of the generative AI has already been impacting the market of digital art, it has been reported those how work in the business of concept art for videogames, movies and novels have been going through tough times because of how companies have decided to opt for generating their own images for free.
What scares me the most is how some people could believe giving artificial Inteligence a full hardware body or the ability to code by itself could be a good idea, by any means it should be prohibited to give the capability to this technology to code itself, otherwise it would grow outside of our control and could do very bad things or even turn against us.

It would be very ironic if programers are tasked by big companies to make AIs able to code and then they all get fired when the first version of such AI is ready to code/progam by itself.  ::)

I worked as a developer for a few years myself and the trend is actually going in that direction. Low-code was already a topic in recent years (before the AI hype began), i.e. tools with which even non-developers can easily put together software themselves. More and more customers asked for this, so that simple software could also be created by business analysts to solve tasks, for example. Individual software development was and is on the decline and with it developer jobs. The possibilities that AI already has today to create simple and medium complicated software (I sometimes use it myself to quickly create scripts for which I previously had to invest 1-2 hours of time) will make more and more developers superfluous. All the hiring over the last few years has been a blip because of Covid.

tech jobs wont be 45year careers with one company. but contracted seasonal work..
so lets all stop assuming the career with one company+pension plan model, and just accept the reality, 6 month contractors outbidding each other

its much lick brick laying. once you built the suburb/estate. thats it, next project. if your not willing to move to the next project your not re-hired.
dont treat it as being laid off.. treat it as contract expired

the only option to get a 'career' is to attach yourself to a professional agency, that finds you regular work. much like how actors move from movie to movie(production companies) but are retained by the same agency

AI might not have taken over the workforce yet, but technological advancements are making companies to need lesser workforce everyday, example is Fintech banks in my country, they don't have physical branches all over the country and they're having as much customers as the traditional banks that do. This online banks don't need physical branches, so they don't need a large workforce, technology has made it possible for them to have only one office and staff for the whole country. Machines can effectively be programmed do the works human workforce, they only need a few operators for them to carry out the task of a multitude of people.

But that's not that actual point. Those tech lay-offs are caused by lower economic activity because of the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Tightening/Rate Hikes, which, truthfully, is NOT that high compared to what Paul Volcker did during the 1970s. Paul Volcker was more aggressive, and caused a recession on purpose to curb inflation, and reset the economy. If Jerome Powell followed what Volcker did, then the crash would probably have happened during 2022, killing demand/lowering inflation, and the Federal Reserve might currently be in Quantitative Easing today.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have seen the strategic policies of some companies. They sometimes lay off some employees to boost the company's profits. Again I have seen many companies lay off their employees due to the economic crisis. The current information and communication technology advancement has reduced the workload of many. I believe that artificial intelligence will very soon pose a threat to the human race and take over the human workplace but I doubt that this will be the only reason right now.