© (Al Seeb / Los Angeles Times) Mergers are on the rise at Amazon and other tech companies. Is caution caused by a wave of deep descent, or is it driven? (Al Seeb/Los Angeles Times)In Silicon Valley, the new year began where the last one ended: thousands of tech workers lost their jobs. In 2023, Amazon CEO Andrew Jesse announced that the company will cut 18,000 jobs. During the week, Microsoft announced that it will cut 10,000 jobs and Google will cut 12,000 jobs. IBM appears to be next, cutting nearly 4,000 jobs.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost at meta-platforms, Twitter and Salesforce this year after bleeding 2022. The tech sector has lost about 220,000 jobs since the start of last year, according to an industry holiday tracker. If tech workers built a city, it would be one of the most populous cities in the United States than Des Moines or Salt Lake City.
The question is: Why have so many profitable companies of our generation, many of which are still very profitable, announced layoffs one after another? But why now?
A common refrain from analysts and journalists is that companies are "tightening their belts" to improve operations after the hiring pandemic. Executives overseeing the layoffs cited unfavorable economic conditions. "We are hiring for a different economic reality than we face today," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in announcing his resignation. "Amazon has faced uncertain and challenging economies in the past, and we will continue to do so," Jassi wrote. "Some parts of the world are in recession, while others are waiting," said Microsoft's Satya Nadella.
So far, there has been no slowdown in the US or the tech sector. Inflation will take a hit, but the US economy added several thousand jobs last month. However, some shareholders have said they want to see cuts and they are still willing.
To this end, critics argue, mere greed refuses; Last year, tech companies approved billions in stock buybacks. Liz Lopato of The Verge spoke to industry analysts who concluded that tech companies are pricing their revenue differently and laying off more than everyone else. And the fact that all these layoffs are happening in rapid succession gives companies a little cover, making them basic and inevitable.
So what's going on here? The answer may be very simple.
"Managing labor costs through a cyclical downturn is like breathing to Silicon Valley: cyclical, vital to life," Malcolm Harris, author of the forthcoming Palo Alto: California, Capitalism, and World History, told me. The cuts, he said, have nothing to do with long- or medium-term strategy other than creating an unreliable workforce.
As one tech CEO said, it goes hand in hand with the economic reality we face today. Because while the recession hasn't hit in a significant way, from a large employer's perspective, there is another economic indicator pointing to the layoff proposals : growing efforts to organize tech workers in an extremely tight job market.
Over the past two years, tech workers' salaries have increased and their bargaining power has begun to increase. Over the past half-decade, tech industry workers have seen a difficult shift in leadership.
They protested gender discrimination at Google and pressured the company to cancel a lucrative defense contract. Protests against the climate policies of Amazon and Microsoft have led these companies to commit to reducing their carbon emissions. Activists on Facebook and Twitter protested the decision to limit content about former President Trump on the platform after January 6, 2021. A subset of Google employees formed the Alphabet Workers Union, the first certified union recognized by the company, together with the Communications Workers Union of America, Amazons for Climate Justice for Amazon Workers and workers at Zenimax, Microsoft's video game subsidiary.
Actual gains so far from organizing tech workers may be relatively small, but rising wages and increased organizational power threaten the tech giants' bottom lines and Silicon Valley's venerable reputation for executive sovereignty. Elon Musk's mass firing at Twitter last year and his insistence that the company keep its "hardcore" software-based code is instructive here, as other tech executives say his approach has inspired them to cut top positions . Own company.
Workers in old union-agnostic industries have united, organized and built solidarity. Disruption and spontaneity of this balance can be an obstacle to that process.
The injured tech workers told me the shooting was accidental; Well-known senior staff, talented colleagues with excellent performance reviews, all shown the door without rhyme or reason. Many wonder why they are saved and why their friends are not.
Alexandra Beatty, program technical manager at Alphabet subsidiary Verily, said it was a "huge surprise" when she was made redundant this month. First, you know your organization has a good reputation. Boulder, Colo. In the office I was considered a pillar of the local community and a high performer. Now they don't even allow me as a guest anymore," he said. Beatty was surprised at the number of publications that perform critical functions to maintain the "core product."
One thing the large-scale and seemingly random deportation of people does, if anything, is to instill caution and even fear in those who remain.
"It's absolutely devastating," said Skylar Hinnant, senior quality assurance testing specialist at Microsoft's Zenimax division, "for those who were laid off, for their families and for their colleagues who were grieving that day and for a long time." After that, they are at risk.
Hinnant says he knows a lot of people who have lost their jobs at Microsoft, everyone knows them. “You can be the most important engineer in your career, you can be a great programmer, and ultimately, if the algorithm wants you to go, you can go.
“I think it exposes people to some of the realities of the industry. We are employees, even though we have benefits and are highly skilled, we are still employees. We can still lose our jobs by accident like everyone else.
Beattie was a visible member of the AWU, supporting it in media interviews on reproductive rights in the workplace. He was always calm and constructive and felt that his suggestions were well received by management. Now he questions whether his firing was retaliation. In the end, he decided the offers were too big to approach directly. "I think it was just another number in the crazy algorithm that the consultancy uses to detect outages," he said.
Elsewhere, there are signs that hard-earned growth for tech workers is slowing. At companies like Twitter, Meta, Amazon and Redfin, layoffs that promised to improve employee diversity have weakened departments responsible for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEIs, Bloomberg reports.
On Tuesday, workers at Cognizant, a prime contractor for Alphabet and YouTube, filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging retaliation for announcing their decision to join the AWU. Alphabet has changed its policy to relocate to Austin, Texas, which is mandatory for all employees and failure to comply will result in "voluntary termination." Activists say that violates NLRB rules that say no major policy changes can be made after a merger is announced.
The tech industry has certainly shown that it is moving toward a hostile approach to limiting workers' wages and power. In 2015, Apple, Google and other tech companies agreed to pay $415 million after the companies complained about the ongoing "hunt" for low-paid CEOs.
But today's massive department cuts shouldn't hurt the lean and disruptive results, helping tech giants tighten control and increase vigilance over the workforce.
"Good communication and all the benefits," Beaty says, "none of that matters if you're always worried, 'Okay, am I going to be around for a random shoot?'
The clinical brutality with which some of the shootings were carried out often served to underscore this point: Googlers found their cards lost while on the job, and employees' email accounts were blocked and not even allowed in their offices. . . To say goodbye to colleagues they have worked with for years.
The tech industry is betting that these massive algorithmic bullets will not only reduce labor costs, but also increasingly remind tech workers of their security and power in their organizations. Historically, this gamble has paid off and helped turn the tech giant into one of the most profitable companies in history.
But this time the situation is likely to be different.
"It's very exciting," Beatty said. Alphabet held a union meeting shortly after the merger was announced. "More than 1,000 people joined," he said, "and another 800 tried to sign up after we started." It was so big that we broke the zoom and couldn't make out the parts.
Zenimax QA testing Hinnant is also an organizer of the newly recognized Microsoft association. "I think it lit a fire in a lot of people to think about organizing. "I have friends at Microsoft and Google and in the industry and I get a lot of calls."
Unlike the mass displacement that preceded the mass displacement in technology, there is now an organized labor base that has the potential to provide limited resources and support to displaced people like those in Salt Lake City.
According to BT, one of the first things the AWU did was set up a Slack channel and a Discord server where out-of-work workers can connect, communicate and share information and employment opportunities.
"Having a place to talk to people who have been affected has been incredibly helpful," Beatty said. “Then we were there to support the wronged and come together to say goodbye.
Soon, thousands of laid-off workers, not only from Google, but from Meta and the entire industry, joined the channel. "It's been really helpful to understand the conditions, what you can and can't do, and being a place where people say, 'Oh, I'm worried,'" she said. It can be a place for networking. We will hire some people. Everybody needs a job now, you know.
Provides informal ad hoc advice to employees and helps them find information and answers they cannot access through email, computers, or human resources. "When you're dealing with what's going on, it's good to have people who can help you get through it," Beaty said. "There are people on visas or paternity leave who say: 'How can I manage this now?' they say. I've collected some of these questions to answer, and here's someone who has a visa and says, 'How long can they leave the country to do these things?'
More importantly, campaigners such as BT and Hinnant say it is driving the need to further organize the tech workforce. "I think it really highlights the need for people to organize, not just in the Microsoft ecosystem, but across the industry," he said. "I think it's a wake-up call. the storm is coming. And there is nothing to prevent it.
BT feels the same way; The cut still hurts, but he hopes to make the most of it. "If I don't get anything out of this," he said, "I hope the AWU grows faster. Then it will be worth the sacrifice."
This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
.png "Admin")