Why Widespread Tech Layoffs Keep Happening Despite A Strong U.S. Economy

As a new tech worker, I have received the message - don’t bother being loyal to a company that views you as disposable. If a better opportunity presents itself, take it.

As a programmer and technical manager, I can tell you that none of these jobs are getting replaced by AI just yet. AI is not yet there. This is just companies prioritizing today’s profitability over tomorrow’s growth in response to predicted upcoming market conditions.

They sure did take the long way to explain CEO greed. The one guy even stated that they fire people who knew old tech to make room for people who know new tech. Why? Costs less to have a bunch of new hires than to train the old ones. Plus a lot of tech companies get tax breaks from over hiring college students, then they lay them all off, and hire a new batch. It's just a big circle of greed.

Been in tech over 20 years. Very few of these jobs are being automated. Execs just want to bump up the stock price. Hiring or firing, whatever lines their pockets. When 99% of an execs compensation is stock, they are not leaders, they are market manipulators.

Let’s be real, companies will just hire when it’s fruitful to look like a massive player with lots of staff, and will fire when it’s fruitful to look lean at times when people are questioning fat.

The Brittany Pietsch video, if it had fully been played, would show that she had only been working for the company for a few months and the reason her ‘metrics’ were low was because the time frame she was being evaluated on included the holiday season in December, when the people she needed to contact for her job were largely all taking time off. So she was hired despite the company soon proving it couldn’t afford her (and all the other employees they laid off), and the company used something that was out of her control as justification for getting rid of her. The utter disregard companies now have for their employees is why this is going viral.

Companies: You're fired for not being born with knowledge of AI technology. New job postings from companies: LOOKING FOR AI SPECIALIST WITH 10 YEARS EXPERIENCE.

"layoffs are a failure in leadership" and yet I'm sure leaders do not see it that way. If you're having multiple rounds of layoffs, you failed as a leader, but leader gets paid for failure. Amazing.

I work at Microsoft. A few guys from my team were laid off. None of them were laid off because of AI.

Hire to reduce tax and increase profits, fire to increase stock value… sounds like a recipe for a stock crash.

It was almost impossible to even get a job in this Tech industry BEFORE these layoffs in my country(norther Europe). And they have been claiming "Shortage of STEM workers" lies for 2 decades now. I wasted years on education and searching for a job with almost nothing but rejections. Waste of money and time on a TOTAL LIE.

As a tech worker I can tell you for certain that AI has absolutely nothing to do with the layoffs. A convenient excuse, maybe, but that’s it. It hasn’t advanced to the point where it can be nearly reliable enough to replace a human being in most roles. What’s actually going on is much more boring: executives looking to maximize profits and slim their companies down by any means. Why now? Because high interest rates has made borrowing money expensive, venture capital money is much harder to come by, and everyone is trying to meet unrealistic growth targets to attract what money is left or to reassure wary shareholders.

I was laid off in that January 2023 spike. The second time I had been laid off in 3 years. Unsure if I wanted to go back into tech, I worked at a small mom n' pop tea shop while I tried to figure out my next move. I networked with customers while getting my travel agent license in my free time. That networking led to an Ops Manager position at a small cannabis company of about 20 people. Now I have a salaried position by day and book travel for people at night for extra money and travel perks. Both are remote positions and I work the same amount of hours while making as much if not more than I did at some soulless tech company. If you were recently laid off, just know that things can turn out for the better.

Cannot wait until CEO's are replaced by AGI.

After a long career as a software engineer / software architect I can say big corporations are the pits to work for. The benefits may be good, but the working environments range from lackluster to downright toxic. Don't expect loyalty, your only value to them is what you can do for them today. Smaller or mid sized companies, in my experience, are much more stable and while they can also be terrible they are more likely to have good vibrant cultures than large corporations. And if you can handle the uncertainty start ups are a blast. You have so much more freedom and ability to set the technical direction of the company. But they can implode over night. And if you find a good management team, consider sticking with them. Often times they'll shift companies as a group if they see a better opportunity. Loyalty to people, not companies. I'm with a group that has moved together through four companies now over 30 years. It's been a wild ride.

Brittany wasn't really in tech. She was a sales person. Sales is notoriously volatile and while related to tech, is not really a good example of "tech layoffs".

As an Experienced Product Manager in tech who's been laid off twice in the past 3 years, this hits close to home. But these layoffs are also a symptom of deeper issues: companies are under immense pressure to show continued profitability during these unstable times, often at the cost of long-term innovation, not to mention basic keep-the-lights on kind of projects. Projects get canceled, roadmaps are deferred, and tech debt piles up because there isn’t sufficient budget or not having enough employees to do the work. This short-sightedness is going to hurt these companies in the long run. AI will not magically make up the difference in the skill gap between experienced vs cheaper/less experienced employees. AI should be viewed as a productivity enabler, not as a replacement to human talent. That being said, it's still tough to see the human cost of these decisions. Especially when one passionate about a particular industry and constantly upskilling one's self. I predict that AI experience will eventually be considered a basic required skill much like knowing how to use word processors and spread sheets became 30 years ago. Good luck to all in this new tech wild west!

Just swapped all of my last ETH and swapped it into Blcktken300 . Already up a little bit. Unfortunately I have some other junk staked which won’t free up for a while. Still now I am on the train!

There is a lot wrong with this video: 1. Brittany was fired, not laid off. There's a huge difference so its important to get it straight. She also only worked there for 3 months and was fired after not meeting early performance numbers. This is a terrible example of a tech layoff because a) its not a layoff, and b) its a job in sales, not really tech, and c) she only had 3 months tenure 2. AI didn't take jobs. By CNBC's own graphic and voiceover at 10:14, bulk of layoffs were between July '22 and Jan '23. ChatGPT was released in November 22. And it was no where near developed yet to the point of replacing jobs. That's not to say it won't eventually replace jobs, but just that it isn't why tech layoffs happened 3. Most of these "tech layoffs" are from administrative services for tech companies. For example 1/3 of the Amazon jobs were in HR and recruiting, another huge percentage were sales and account management. When growth and new customers slowed, there is less need for salespeople and account management. When Hiring freezes are enacted you don't need your recruiting teams anymore or anywhere near the HR staff you did before. CNBC should really have broken those out. 4. Elon Musk did not influence tech layoffs. Twitter has been floundering and losing market shared and brand recognition since he took over. Amazon, Meta, Microsoft are not trying to emulate the dumpster fire happening over there. --- So what's the real reason? Well its basically all explained at 3:03 with the University of Washington professor. Basically during 2020 and 2021, everyone was inside and tech companies started seeing huge growth. So they hired fast while labor was cheap in order to take advantage of the land grab for these new customers. They overhired intentionally because it was better to spend cheap money (low interest) to hold onto good talent to spur growth because there was so much upside. Now there isn't as much upside and the land grab is over. So companies are settling back down into the new normal, and that means readjusting their workforce for long term profitability. During the 2020-2022 era, the companies were not organized for sustainability and profit, they were organized for mad growth. It is just a changing of the economy and companies adjusting to it. No one complained during the mad hiring. But everyone freaks out when it stops and things re-adjust. Its just the counter-reaction to the previously crazy hiring spree we saw in 2020.

I cant wait for the day AI takes a CEO's job