this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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Despite Booming Economy And Record Profits Google, Amazon, Microsoft And More Lay Off Over 42,000 So Far In 2024::Despite a booming U.S. economy and significant advancements in the tech sector, including a robust performance by companies like Nvidia Corp. and a thriving artificial intelligence (AI) industry, tech companies have continued to lay off workers at an alarming rate in 2024. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index has shown an impressive uptick and the U.S. economy added 353,000 jobs in January, outpacing economists’ forecasts. However, this overall economic strength masks a wave of layoffs in the tech sector

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[–] BigMacHole@lemm.ee 112 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Whew! We dodged a bullet! Imagine what would have happened if we Raised Their Taxes or the Minimum Wage!

[–] podperson@lemm.ee 101 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I sure am glad we get these large corporations so much in the way of legislation, relaxed regulation, and financial incentives. Surely these will guarantee loads of FUTURE hiring when it will all start trickling down.

Right? Right?

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago

For trickle-down economics to work, there would need to be a tax structure in place that ratio'd your businesses net worth to your number of employees. And then have tiers. And at a certain tier, you're just 99% taxed. This way when the robots take over, it generates wealth for the masses instead of the few.

..until lobbyists play the "robots count as employees" card. Which inevitably leads to wealthy individuals propping up a robot to run for president. Which is how you get skynet.

Ok I'm gonna go make coffee.

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

Thank god we gave a massive corporate tax cut. This way they have more money to pay their employees

[–] b3an@lemmy.world 58 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Don’t forget they pay little to no taxes and even some are getting money for negative tax. We pay something like 154 billion to those top companies, according to another article I read on Lemmy today.

[–] STOMPYI@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I won't! And don't forget to vote with your dollars and buy local whenever possible. Local owners spend money in local towns.

[–] notgold@aussie.zone 1 points 8 months ago

Exactly this. So using amazon

[–] gloss@discuss.tchncs.de 32 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They need to free up the cash to pay the CEO bonuses somehow.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Fucking seriously. My company (in the tech industry) has gone through a few rounds of layoffs recently. We keep hearing about how things are absolutely in the shitter and how we're all struggling to survive tough times.

Then they shared their financials last week and we had a 20% profit margin!! I was expecting a negative profit based on all the layoffs and doom and gloom. Wtf!

[–] eethi@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It's at the non-profits too. My work turned around suddenly in November claiming there was no money/funding for the work that had already been approved and highly praised. Gas lighting. Turning (or trying to) turn our colleagues against us. Yelling and crying (I kid you not, I was horrified at the time). Calling us disrespective and divisive (because we were trying to fix access/health and safety issues and had not only been given the go ahead, it was incorporated into our strategic plan in the summer and our boss repeatedly said that funding wasn't an issue at the time).

Cue 3 weeks later in our AGM, where the auditors come in to talk about the financials.

"We have to be careful not to give the illusion that we're hoarding money because we have so much in the bank".

All because my bosses feelings were fucking hurt and she's the definition of a fragile neo-liberal white lady who thinks she's a radical leftist.

(We've now been in mediation for three months, surpriiiiise, lol. And I have lawyers on hand in case they don't get their heads out of their asses, which seems more and more likely as time goes by becauze they broke labour law and my province's human rights code)

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 31 points 8 months ago

What‘s the point of not regulating them when they don‘t create new jobs? I mean putting congressmen self interest aside, they should be broken up. No point in keeping them together.

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 8 months ago (3 children)

The US economy is booming?

[–] june@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago

In every way that matters to corps, yes.

For the rest of us who are getting laid off, not so much.

[–] essteeyou@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

Profitability is up, but that's partially because of the layoffs not despite them.

[–] BrightCandle@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

GDP is doing just fine, its just that there is a class warfare where wages are being suppressed significantly by corporations with State help and so most people are getting poorer as the wealthiest get richer faster than ever before.

[–] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Because the economy is so great. /S. Please ignore the fact that we just went through nearly 20% inflation and that now, small and mid-sized banks will begin crashing like dominos, because of their exposure to commercial real estate, when everybody wants to work from home. Mild recessions are necessary. Not severe ones, for sure, but some is necessary.

And this can all be laid at the feet of the Federal Reserve, which is not Federal, and has no reserves, and counterfeits money with the blessing of the government.

[–] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Seeing your @monero.town address made me love this comment even more

[–] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 3 points 8 months ago

You are most welcome.

[–] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 17 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Now compare those numbers to how much they hired during Covid and it no longer looks that bleak.

They overhired like crazy, vacuuming up all the talent so smaller companies and competitors couldn't get any. Now the interest rates are up (no more 'free' money) and they have to cut the fat.

[–] EnderMB@lemmy.world 27 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

While you're not wrong, no company is calling it out like this. If I were to make a catastrophic hiring mistake, I'd probably be fired. The CEO's that looked at the pandemic, saw their profit rising, and decided "it's because we're so awesome, let's hire everyone" should bear the blame.

To take Amazon as an example, if you were to take how much they paid for MGM and on Rings of Power, Amazon could have paid salaries to everyone they let go for a full year. It's a dereliction of duty at leadership level, and the high stock price is the only reason they aren't out on the street.

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 6 points 8 months ago

Overhired and they were way to ambitious with their projections, so for the C Levels to unlock their full bonus they need to harvest skulls to meet their targets.

[–] Gakomi@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean over hiring during Covid cause I remember them laying people off at least in my country

[–] Vlyn@lemmy.zip 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

All those companies still have more employees than they did before the pandemic: https://steve-taplin.medium.com/big-tech-employee-numbers-before-and-after-the-pandemic-tells-the-real-story-bc67779c3cc8

So including the recent firings they are more on a headcount level of 2021 or so.

[–] Gakomi@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Maybe it's due to over hiring, maybe due to the fact that some those people had jobs that were replaced by AI bots, it does not really matter, right now the market is fucked and good luck finding a job if you were laid off.

[–] Gutless2615@ttrpg.network 5 points 8 months ago

Class warfare