this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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The answer is a lot of companies made dumb decisions during COVID-19. A lot of tech CEO's saw a massive increase of profits during the COVID lockdown, and they decided there was no possible way for the gravy train to ever slow. The tech sector expanded way beyond its means, and now that COVID restrictions have inevitably ended and most everyone has returned to normal, their profit margins have shrunk back to normal. Since tech CEOs all have a brain parasite that compels them to increase growth always and forever, they have to now cut all those employees they hired during the pandemic to make the line go up.
You'll notice that none of the tech CEOs are going to face any consequences for their pants-on-head stupid belief that they'd continue seeing the same revenue as when people were trapped in their homes, and the only ones who are going to suffer are all the employees who have now wasted ~3 years at these companies.
I'm not sure the CEOs actually thought growth would continue like that forever. They just knew they could get rid of all the extra people they hired when it slowed. The layoffs were always part of the plan, they just didn't say that quiet part out loud back in 2020.
There is zero way these people didn’t know this would eventually happen. Anyone who was looking at this going on with a critical eye would have seen it coming from a mile away. Tons of more senior tech workers knew it would happen eventually. The market is especially rough for juniors right now.
You are saying none and all, but look at Valve?
valve? the privately owned company not beholden to shareholders valve? that valve?
You were all over it until you went cApiTisM BAD!
Yes, the tech sector went nuts and overstaffed. For reasons (see below). But now some people have to go.
Ever had a job at a big company where you're doing very little, not accomplishing much? It's miserable and scary.
We're social animals. We do well in small groups, contributing. When you look around your team and no one's doing shit, you get no sense of accomplishment and start asking each other, "Fuck are we doing here and when does the ax drop?" Morale tanks hard.
As to the suits being stupid, were you the CEO of Zoom, what would you have done at the beginning of the pandemic? Just said, "Fuck it. We're riding this unprecedented event out! No idea the fucks going to happen, but we'll tough it out with the staff we got!"
Then you would be bitching about overworked employees, miserable and unable to accomplish anything for the fire hose of work hitting them. Then you would bitch about how Zoom used to be great and really tanked during the pandemic.
I'm sure lemmy will come along and tell me how much more wisely they would have handled a century-event hitting a brand-new sector of the economy.
(And BTW, many of the people let go are walking off with a FAT new entry on their resumes. Tech jobs aren't hard to find, even in slim times. Been there, done that.)