[Mountain_Skies]

During the Great Recession my employer at the time laid off a large percentage of our staff that they had wanted to layoff for a long time. Due to the nature of their industry, the appearance of stability was very important so they never did layoffs before. Any accumulated excess workforce had to be reduced through attrition or gross misconduct excessive enough for warrant being fired for cause. During the recession though, banks were failing left and right, unemployment was going up, mass layoffs were happening every day, and total economic collapse didn't seem out of the question. While the layoff did make the newspaper that day, it was considered a minor story with no follow up. During good times it would have been the top news story of the week and scared many of our clients. I wonder if this current crisis will allow for similar workforce reductions by companies seeing it as a good opportunity to reduce labor expenses without eroding public confidence in their company.

[alexpetralia]

I also wonder whether this obscured and now accelerated "structural unemployment" - combined with a greater acceptance of remote work - will further shift domestic jobs overseas.

[Rebles]

I actually wonder if the pandemic will discourage globalization. The NYT Podcast last week had a great segment on pandemic’s negative effects on globalization, specifically, the global supply chain. It postulates that the longer the supply chain is negatively impacted, the more likely corporations will try to localize.

That being said, 60+ days of lockdown, and Wuhan is only now starting to consider easing restrictions. Other countries’ responses have been half measured compared to China, so we might have a longer period social distancing. CDC estimates will need the current measures through July. Other articles I read say we’ll need on-again off-again social distancing for the next 15 months as the virus surges and wanes.

[istorical]

This is my greatest fear as an American engineer.

When corporations finally realize remote work is just as valuable as in office work they'll start to wonder why they are employing US developers for $XX,XXX to $XXX,XXX when they could pay a European developer a low five figure salary in a weaker currency and get the same results.

[akiselev]

I'm more worried about tech losing its status as investment of last resort. Who knows how much of the industry is propped up by the flood of easy capital in the last few decades. We just watched all that capital dry up with everyone's liquidity.

Software engineering already went through a wave of offshoring in the 2000s and the whiplash from that was enough to make many a freelancer/agency/startup rich. We learned that many knowledge and service jobs can't economically be offshored because the benefits of locality (whether thats due to the trust from face to face interaction, efficiency of communication, etc, depends on the field) far outweighs the extra cost.

[throw51319]

I could see aggregate investment in tech go down, but relative investment no way. Automating all processes with technology gives benefit in all industries. Our skills will be lucrative (relatively speaking) until they figure out how to automate the building of somewhat complex systems.

[throwaway3563]

> tech losing its status as investment of last resort

What do you mean by this? Investment in tech companies by retail/institutional investors, or investment by companies in their own proprietary tech?

[Scroogeable]

> accumulated excess workforce

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

[fennecfoxen]

Being fired is not a death sentence.

[TheOtherHobbes]

For some people it is. It depends on their level in the food chain, and - if they're near the bottom - their willingness to take criminal risks.

[fennecfoxen]

Occasionally, yes? It remains unhelpfully melodramatic to talk about layoffs as equivalent to murder.

Our society has a variety of safety nets to prevent this from being the case. It might need more or better safety nets! You can make this case! Nevertheless, I would opine that it works better when this happens at the government level (paying someone unemployment insurance) rather than at the firm level, for a variety of reasons.