[db1234]

Meta employees were angry about the sudden layoff announcement and access cut off. Many wanted an advance notice like what Jassy has given. I guess there is no "right" way to do this.

In this particular case, what Jassy seems to be saying to employees is that they should be customer obsessed and work hard for the holiday season but he cannot guarantee they will still have their job in Q1. That sucks. My heart goes out to everyone who is and will be impacted.

[allthecybers]

> Many wanted an advance notice like what Jassy has given.

There were 48 hours of layoffs and no communication from any CEO, S-Team member or other senior leadership at Amazon. Beth Galetti (HR) took the time write up a post about the hiring freeze a couple weeks back but radio silence from leadership while the rank and file scrambled to find out who was affected. With Amazon being so fastidious about communications to curate their corporate image, it's surprising that they didn't bother to communicate unless it was (possibly) intentional.

I appreciate Andy finally sending something out, but it feels like this was a big miss at the very least.

Source: https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/16/23463223/amazon-layoff...

[db1234]

I agree. Andy's message seems like a course correction due to backlash from employees rather than proactive.

[caminante]

"Angry?" Sheesh...

Meta employees got gold-plated severance packages. The complainers have other issues than the layoff.

> For those who lost their job in the United States, Meta said it would pay severance of 16 weeks of their base pay, along with two additional weeks for every year they worked at the company. Laid-off workers and their families will have health care paid for six months. [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/technology/meta-layoffs-f...

[db1234]

Yes, angry. For people on visa, it doesn't matter if severance is gold or silver plated. They will only have 60 days to find another job or leave the country. Giving an advance notice will help them mentally prepare and start looking for a job assuming the worst case so they get some buffer days.

I agree though Meta's severance package was quite good.

[caminante]

Sort by salary. [0] Only ~8/2k+ visa employees have a salary < 100k.

My stance is that the subset of visa holders impacted by layoffs is STILL a very fortunate crowd stings no matter what.

[0] https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=meta+platforms+inc&job=&ci...

[echelon]

If a layoff isn't an attempt [1] to get rid of under-performing talent or dump under-performing business divisions, then I've always felt that across the board pay adjustments are a much more ethical approach.

I'd be much more inclined to stay at a company that lowered my pay 20% than a company that laid off my coworkers. Not letting people go shows empathy, and uniform pay decreases align everyone's interests in getting back to a good state.

I could see why some might jump ship from a poorly performing company during ordinary economic times, but during this down tech cycle, the grass isn't necessarily greener. Going elsewhere might be difficult or put your head back on the chopping block.

[1] Or as some might view it, an opportunity.

[rtpg]

For people on the lower end of the pay spectrum, 20% is a lot. I don't know exactly the wage distribution, but it's not like the customer support people being laid off are getting SWE salaries. So "let's just uniformly cut salaries" can be a much harder proposition.

And then you get into the difficulties where the highest paid people tend to be paid with stock, so _they already are having pay cuts from drops_. When you're looking at "cash on hand" problems it's hard to get everything balanced right. Though I do think it's worth it to try and make something work.

Personally I'm a bit of the opinion that larger companies have a responsibility to bank in employee costs more long term than in growth phases. Especially places with higher attrition, if you're able to run the clock for a year hiring freezes + shutting down teams that you want to shut down anyways feels like it would be less demotivating. But I don't know

[kanwisher]

Nah the best people just leave

[makestuff]

Yeah basically going to make everyone work hard over peak to try and keep their jobs then start the cuts in January. The cuts will probably be whatever the delta is between the missed revenue from q4 and what wall street estimated.

[andsoitis]

> The cuts will probably be whatever the delta is between the missed revenue from q4 and what wall street estimated

This is backward looking. The right thing to do is look at your forecasts of the future and adjust according to those (because the past is in the past and is unchangeable).

[reilly3000]

Honestly if it needed to be done, it was kind to do it before the holidays with the generous severance. I think a lot of these folks might FIRE or otherwise start down a different path. I don’t know how Amazon is doing this right during their peak sales and logistics season.

[refurb]

I guess there is no "right" way to do this.

I've been through a number of layoffs all the way from getting notice that my last day is 2 weeks from the announcement to 9 months. To be honest, the shorter period was better, at least for me.

When it's a long notice (say >2 months), you enter into this weird gray zone. You're neither unemployed nor employed with a long term job. All motivation disappears and you're just "waiting". Obviously you can use the time to find a new job, but there is only so much time you can devote to that.

It was far better to get notice a month or two in advance of pending layoffs (exactly who not disclosed), then get an announcement that your last day is in 2 weeks, but you'll get 60 days of pay, then your severence payout.

Felt like "ripping the bandaid off" was much preferable. At least you can get on with things at that point.

[bogota]

At the end of the day all that really matters is the comp package.