Tech Layoffs

[tyz]

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?

[serveria.com]

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.

[tyz]

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.

More than one-third (37%) of business leaders say AI replaced workers in 2023, according to a recent report from ResumeBuilder.
Employees say that 29% of their work tasks are replaceable by AI, project management and collaboration software company Asana found in its surveying.

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

[dothebeats]

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.

[tabas]

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.

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.

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.

[Churchillvv]

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.

[Fortify]

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?

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.

[poodle63]

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.

[Samlucky O]

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 is a similar case.

[Yamane_Keto]

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.



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.

[franky1]

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

[Poker Player]

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.

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

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.

[adaseb]

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.

[Apocollapse]

Are we near to the end of capitalism? there were robberies steals $12K in merchandise from Watts Nike store and no one cares with that.

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

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.

[Jatiluhung]

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?

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.

[blckhawk]

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.

[davis196]

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?

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.

[Hispo]

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.

[Lucius]

~snip~
According to https://layoffs.fyi, 25,000 documented tech jobs have already been cut this year.

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.

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 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.

[slapper]

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