"In fact, this was Kshama Sawant's gift to capitalists. An increased wage bill means they are forced to make money the only way that that class can make it: by spending."

Is Charles under the impression Sawant somehow increased salaries for tech workers?

Nothing new, really. Companies are often caught between the long term goals of growing the business, and the short term goal of being very profitable. Boeing made that move a long time ago, the day after they merged with McDonnell Douglas. There was no American competition. A company with an engineering mindset transitioned to a Jack Welch style company that eventually just focused on sucking on the government's tit. Now that they have moved to DC, the transition is complete.

For years Amazon was not profitable, and focused mainly on growth. They wanted to corner the online retail market, and over time, other markets. Grow, grow grow. Until, of course, they had cornered all the markets they figured they would corner. Now it is time to focus on profitability. Thank you workers, for making us so big. Now that we have destroyed the competition, your services are no longer needed.

Software does tend to have a gold rush mentality. Most software products are extremely profitable, since the costs scale so well. A lot of engineering goes into building a car, but you still have to actually build it, and that costs a lot. In contrast, building copies of a video game is cheap. It is all engineering, and it doesn't take that many engineers. I have a feeling much of the latest round of layoffs are due to the boom/bust cycle surrounding "the cloud". Companies outsourced their IT work (and hardware) to a handful of companies. Large software companies were hoping to secure their share of a quickly growing market. But now that the companies that are interested in moving to the cloud have already moved, there is no need to grow. Like tulips and cryptocurrency, the folks who really want it already have it, so now the market collapses (or at least becomes stable). So again, the services of those folks who staked the claims are no longer needed.

While I think the message is a little more accurate, it still doesn't get to the heart of the matter. It would be nice if companies were brutally honest: "We are going to lay off a bunch of people so that the owners can make more money. It might not be good in the long run, but we'll take our chances."

Man there are a lot of tears out there for an extremely well-paid sector of the economy, with perks like free EVERYTHING for years along with stock options, sitting out the public health impacts of working through COVID; they also drove housing prices through the roof. It was only a matter of time that the real world (cough AI) caught up with tech.

it's nothing but greed. amazon made $70 BILLION in 2020 alone. gotta cut tens of thousands of jobs now because there's too few people who want their piece of that pie to be as big as possible. it's also about furthering the divide between those who make six figures and those who do the real labor (warehouse and delivery). see how expendable our most valued employees are? don't you dare keep trying to unionize or get better working conditions.

@1: I’m guessing it’s partly the Stranger’s desperate need to celebrate The Flawless Glory That Is Our Dear Great Comrade Sawant while they still can (as the shockwave of her quitting continues to reverberate painfully through their deeply bowed heads), but mostly it’s the very mundane fact that Charles knows absolutely nothing about economics.

@4: It’s a business, not a charity, and Amazon is laying off tech workers, not warehouse workers.

What I think we have here is a loosely monopolist—but monopolist just the same—coordinated attempt to reverse the labor power we’ve seen for the last couple years in the tech sector.

For quite some time now, there have been more openings than workers. Corporate leadership found themselves at the mercy of voluntary attrition as workers sought better and better wages, benefits, and most of all increased autonomy to do the kinds of work they wanted do, with the right kinds of people, teams, and cultures. Companies found themselves in a bidding war not just for the highest achievers, but even mid-level, everyday workers. An untenable situation from their perspective.

But then, like manna from heaven, came “economic headwinds.” Inflation spiked, interest rates went up, and the post-pandemic stock market underwent a (completely predictable and totally proportional) correction. Those factors, combined with endless recessionary talk (with little, ultimately, to support it other than the media’s addiction to stress clicks), gave tech companies the necessary cover to push back. Create fear. Reassert their dominant position.

Per Charles’s point, it’s actually counterproductive in the short term. There is every indication that invests made now will pay off significantly over the next decade. But that’s a battle which can be forfeited with “acceptable losses.” The larger war, which tech (and of course, capitalism across the board) has to win in order to sustain the established wealth hierarchy, is to keep long-term control over labor. It’s a trade they’ll happily make every time.

@4 duh that's the point. they're laying off tech workers. the warehouse workers are the ones fighting to earn better wages and working conditions. it's a message. as my comment states. and "it's a business" is not an argument. we're living in a time when businesses are making more than ever, paying less taxes than ever, and still laying off more people than ever because they are insatiably greedy. people provide labor and that labor being compensated is not charity. the warehouse workers and people who deliver packages for amazon deserve are the ones who keep amazon pumping out packages that the feed the need of the masses for whatever they want whenever they want it (especially delivered next day)!!!

@7; Laying off a few hundred tech workers in California (who can easily get jobs elsewhere, as the California tech sector overall is booming) seems like a wildly ineffective way to send “a message” to warehouse workers in Alabama or wherever, but you have your predetermined conclusion to reach, and so you’re going to reach it.

It should be obvious that, for so long as (say) CM Sawant keeps ordering items from Amazon, Amazon will need warehouse workers and delivery drivers in Renton or wherever to send her purchases to her. Those workers’ positions will exist independently of how many persons Amazon employs in the Spheres.

I was part of a layoff last fall and now am with another tech company. The work I was doing last fall was STUPID! It was bells and whistles but BORING. I was paid well. The new CEO made a wise decision to lay us off and refocus on priorities that actually made sense for the customer.

It's not "tech workers are the new coal miners" narrative that Charles and Xina so desperately want it to be. It's about want makes sense technically and will DELIGHT THE CUSTOMER and therefore be more profitable.

After all, Seattle has never had layoffs before!

It's the billionaires fault? After years of an ongoing struggle between the unholy alliance of tax collectors, regulators and organized labor versus the rights of workers to manage their own contracts with the aforementioned billionaires? You got what you wanted. You are an employment statistic as well as an overhead cost with no ability to market your own skill set to customers. Never mind your contribution to a corporations wealth creation (tax law prohibits that sort of accounting). And once you are laid off, you provide an income for thousands of federal, state and local government economists and regulstors to wring their hands over.

At least their jobs are safe.

@14, Pay me in excess of my salary and benefits and I’ll do that excess work. Otherwise, I’ll do the job I’m paid to do.

@14: Working at home makes workers more productive as well by shaving off considerable commute time. And if employees are still having to manage their JIRA or DevOps user stories and tasks, provide status, etc. from home - well, there's your accountability.

@11 raindrop, I hate when a company wants to "delight the customer" (geez, I can't believe you put that in all caps).

What I want them to do is give me what they said they would. Why should I be delighted at that basic obligation?

“My next post on this subject will attempt to link these developments with the connection between the way Gen Z voted in 2022 and Florida's banishing of all books from classrooms.”

Needs more Trilateral Commission, Charles.