Some smaller tech startups are running out of cash and facing fundraising struggles with the era of easy money now over, which has prompted workforce reductions. But experts say for most large and publicly-traded tech firms, the layoff trend this month is aimed at satisfying investors.
Shulman adds: “They’re getting away with it because everybody is doing it. And they’re getting away with it because now it’s the new normal,” he said. “Workers are more comfortable with it, stock investors are appreciating it, and so I think we’ll see it continue for some time.”
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And as Wall Street rallies on news of laid-off tech employees, more and more tech companies axe workers.
“You’re seeing that these tech companies are almost being rewarded by Wall Street for their cost discipline, and that might be encouraging those companies, and other companies in tech, to cut costs and layoff staff,” said Roger Lee, who runs the industry tracker layoffs.fyi.
So it’s exactly how it feels - it’s pure greed, done by the powerful and unaccountably rich CEOs to woo powerful and unaccountably rich Wall Street investors. All of these tech companies at this point treat their workers as numbers on a balance sheet, just elements of an optimization game where only those oligarchs have a seat.
The mindset in tech for years now has been “growth at all costs”, what we’re seeing is the effects of that cost
Avarice and narcissism?
It’s interesting how often that’s the answer to this kind of question.
Incompetent management
The (non-founder) C-suite seems to think that people hate them for laying off other staff. People hate them because the C-suite doesn’t have to face the consequences of their incompetence. It’s the regular staff that does. CEOs instead get golden parachutes for running companies into the ground.
🎯
Yeah. I worked for a SaaS company that had two rounds of layoffs because they hired C-suite executives who were better at talking than building software or running product teams.
One was let go in the layoffs – but given a book of clients to start a competing business. The other is still there holding pointless meetings that keep people from getting work done.
Not enough profit and also copycat syndrome
Perhaps the economy is not as good as everybody says it is, and a very cyclical sector like tech is the first one to feel it.
This is a cycle that has existed for decades now. Hell, it’s existed ever since Capitalism took hold, and laborers became just another “interchangeable part” to a business.
We were really bad about protecting workers from it, until it the combination of anti-labor actions by businesses disrupting WWI war manufacturing (resulting in the National War Labor Board), as well as the Great Depression-era judicial (and physical) fights over striking, resulted in actual labor protections under Hoover and Roosevelt.
Now we’re seeing the effect of decades of corporate lobbying (as well as brain-dead “Libertarian” mindsets among Centrists and Republicans) to weaken employee protections. Businesses have realized that they can, without consequence, use cycles of firing and hiring to manipulate their financials to have more favorable short-term outcomes.
