Remember when everyone cut jobs and canceled orders at the beginning of the pandemic and it really bit them? I'm like 49% sure that's going to happen again. Something funny is in the air.
Amazon's headcount literally doubled from 2019 to 2021. The recent layoffs barely move their headcount back at all.
While Amazon may be the most visible, this pattern was repeated across a lot of smaller companies. Even my employer was setting arbitrary goals to grow headcount by certain numbers last year and hired a lot of people with questionable qualifications in the process. Now they're laying people off and using it as an opportunity to cut their mistakes.
A lot of good people are getting laid off, but I have a feeling that many of these layoffs are an overdue correction from companies that were too afraid to let anyone go in the past few years. Now that the hiring market has changed to give employers the upper hand, it's only natural for them to start wanting to cut underperforming employees and focus on the people doing most of the work.
> Amazon's headcount literally doubled from 2019 to 2021.
What you're leaving out is that Amazon's net sales literally doubled between 2019 and 2021, from $280MM to $470MM. The doubling of headcount over that period was perfectly rational and in-line with its business model.
There was definitely irrational exuberance in hiring during 2021-2022. But Amazon's exuberance was far more rational than most of tech. Ironically, Amazon both hired far more than everyone else and also over-hired less than everyone else. Unlike all of the other FAANG++ companies, Amazon is and always has been a low margin and labor intensive business.
> Now that the hiring market has changed to give employers the upper hand, it's only natural for them to start wanting to cut underperforming employees and focus on the people doing most of the work.
That reeks of "I'm so sorry but with the tough financial times right now, we have to run a skeleton crew, so we won't be able to approve any of your PTO requests and we're expecting you to work long hours for the forseeable future"
Then later at the earnings meeting: "We made record profits this quarter! The CEO is getting a giant ass bonus!"
I wonder if this is what drove a lot of pandemic hiring. A bunch of companies froze their hiring in March-April (some did layoffs), realized they made a mistake, and in the Summer went on a hiring spree.
In this case the maritime shipping industry has a huge oversupply of boats (compared to last year which had a huge undersupply). Consumers are slowing their spending and retailers have a lot of inventory.
It’s slightly different dynamics. At the beginning of the pandemic, people thought the world was going to end (either in literal terms or just economic ones). The massive hiring came after people realized that life would go on.
What’s happening today is a result of the free money spigot being turned off. The layoffs and hiring freezes are going to be a bit more sticky.
I'm skeptical. I think companies are still in denial about just how thorough the upper quintile of the labor force was hollowed out during COVID. This is easy to miss -- especially in industries like tech -- where title inflation for junior workers has cause executives to over-estimate the fungability of veteran labor.
There is also a lower chance of having stimulus to soften the initial blow for those being laid off. It also seemed like layoffs at the start of the pandemic were centered around the service industry, where as now we are seeing them in a broader context.
I'm of the opinion that we're just regressing to the pre-COVID trend line.
Many metrics have a huge pandemic bump that's just approaching the pre-COVID trend line. I suspect we'll see a slight overcorrection. First dipping below trend, then bouncing back up a bit, before finally returning to trend line.
Companies will adjust to supply chain issues. Workers will wisen up and move jobs. Home demand will level out with supply. People will return to "normal" work areas.
High inflation means it's all the more important to find a return. You don't get interest from holding cash, you get interest from lending it out; on a personal scale maybe you can do that by lending to your bank but for those looking for a return on large amounts of capital it's not that simple.
Taking Amazon for example, look at this chart: https://www.statista.com/chart/7581/amazons-global-workforce...
Amazon's headcount literally doubled from 2019 to 2021. The recent layoffs barely move their headcount back at all.
While Amazon may be the most visible, this pattern was repeated across a lot of smaller companies. Even my employer was setting arbitrary goals to grow headcount by certain numbers last year and hired a lot of people with questionable qualifications in the process. Now they're laying people off and using it as an opportunity to cut their mistakes.
A lot of good people are getting laid off, but I have a feeling that many of these layoffs are an overdue correction from companies that were too afraid to let anyone go in the past few years. Now that the hiring market has changed to give employers the upper hand, it's only natural for them to start wanting to cut underperforming employees and focus on the people doing most of the work.