urgjotonlkec t1_j4rm0bq wrote on January 17, 2023 at 7:54 PM

Feels like a lot of this is just perception driving reality. Tech stocks are going down due to the Fed which is causing tech companies to cut jobs. It doesn't really make much sense because their actual business isn't affected by the Fed, just their stock.

Youvebeeneloned t1_j4rrwgx wrote on January 17, 2023 at 8:30 PM

Its more the media is making it all up to make it seem like its a thing.

All these companies cutting jobs have hundreds of thousands of employees. Its literally like 2-3% attrition rates which is well below national average and typical this time of year because this is when any companies whose fiscal years match the calendar year are giving out performance reviews.

Likewise the "large" numbers of tech jobs cut are not being reflected in monthly unemployment numbers which not only continue to be low, but actually are getting lower as of last month... and these are not the type of employees who run out and get Christmas jobs at the mall here...

The only outliers is Twitter because of Musks fuckery... and Salesforce because their CEO fucked up royally with hiring over COVID. Outside of that I would not bat an eye at even 5-6k job loss in the tech industry... since thats only slightly higher than the normal yearly 2-3k.

cubobob t1_j4v3bwt wrote on January 18, 2023 at 1:51 PM

Also, are they not doing this every year? Scrap up 1 to 5%, Close some departments, deprecate some tech, get new people, open new departments. Aside from the Twitter fuckup of course.

wolfishlygrinning t1_j4shsoh wrote on January 17, 2023 at 11:14 PM

Well that's not quite true. The fed rate going up increases the value of a current dollar over a future dollar. That makes investing in future growth less important and current profits more important. Thus all the layoffs and profit pumping.

urgjotonlkec t1_j4si76b wrote on January 17, 2023 at 11:17 PM

That argument gets trotted out a lot, but it doesn't actually make any sense in the current environment. Real rates are currently negative (inflation is higher than interest rates) so actually future profits are worth MORE now.