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The tech sector is pouring billions of dollars into AI. But it keeps laying off humans
(edition.cnn.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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Correlation ≠ causation
For the large tech companies that my wife and I work for, it’s the pandemic.
The bonkers pandemic tech boom has chilled. People were trapped at home and were streaming video, buying shit online, using same-day delivery for food, throwing birthday parties on zoom, using telehealth to talk to their doctor, buying new gear for the desks they were tied to, sitting on social media for extended periods, etc.
All of those industries have seen traffic / sales cool a LOT. People are traveling, doing things in person, etc. Employees were hired to address the pandemic level demand, and now demand is returning back to normal.
That would make sense if the companies laying off people were at all related to those kinds of markets that depend on the traffic you describe for survival. Most people that I know including me were layed off from companies that sell B2B stuff or solid things that are always on need independent of those factors. The common excuse used is that everyone was hiring a lot to catch the good talent that others were firing.
What I see is just all businesses using an excuse of "oh everyone is doing it, let's do it too" independent of if it's really necessary or not.
It’s going to be different for every company, but as someone who is close to the numbers and is in the rooms listening to the execs freak out, and is close to others in similar roles, a lot of tech layoffs are being blamed on pandemic over-hiring.
And I can attest to hiring a shit load in 2020 / 2021. It was kind of bonkers. There were lots of opening, not a lot of candidates, and as a candidate you could negotiate insane salaries. It reminded me of the dot com boom days of the late 90’s.
It's a "perfect storm" combining both post-covid effects and shiny new thing effects