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by PragmaticPulp
1258 days ago
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I would agree with you, except for the fact that hiring was completely out of control during 2021-2022 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. |
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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.