WSJ:Layoffs Spread Beyond Tech Titans

I don’t know how bad this is going to get for the overall economy.
But the mass layoffs are definitely going beyond tech and beyond retail.
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Dow, IBM and SAP say they will lay off thousands of workers as belt-tightening becomes the new business priority.

Dow Inc.,International Business Machines Corp. and SAP, announced plans to cut thousands of jobs to prepare for a darkening economic outlook, as the current wave of corporate layoffs spreads beyond high-growth technology companies.

Together with layoffs announced by manufacturer 3M Co. these companies

https://www.wsj.com/articles/corporate-layoffs-spread-beyond-high-growth-tech-giants-11674743815?mod=hp_lead_pos1

And Bloomberg

Hasbro to Cut 15% of Workforce After Disappointing Holiday Sales
Hasbro (HAS) to Cut 15% of Workforce After Disappointing Holiday Sales - Bloomberg
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Three related news snippets I came across while looking into the above

  1. Jeff Bezos (the guy who announced mass layoffs the same day he announced he is giving away his fortune to environmental and racial justice causes) has apparently extended his layoff axe to include the Washington Post.

  2. I am not sure if work-from-home employees are being hit harder than work-in-office employees, but apparently, they present a special wrinkle of some sort when it comes to layoffs.


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  3. Judging from the news coverage San Fran is perhaps the hardest hit and, at least in a short term sense, compares to Detroit. (hat tip to @SixFoot )

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I am not sure that remote workers are at any more risk than their in office counterparts.

All our data at my employer shows higher productivity, less absenteeism and improved performance across all our metrics since 2020 when ovenight 50,000 plus employees became work at home.

I now go into the office a few times a month and its a nice break but find there are more distractions in office.

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Thank you.

My feeling is that the long term employment outlook of at-home workers is poor, but that it will take months before that shows up in the data, if at all…

What job can at-home New Yorker do at the NY salary,
that cannot also be done by a West Virginian at a W Virginia salary?
An Indian at an Indian salary? etc.?

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To a degree you are right but many companies are now taking a very targetted approach to offshoring and outsourcing. My employer was burnt badly in the mid noughties in the rush to offshore. Now we own the companies where we have offshore operations. Though not every sector is the same.

Advancing technology is more of a concern for me, we now have bots reading claim edits and making the appropriate adjustments whereas before we had humans doing that same job. AI is ever advancing and we have a number of basic customer service functions completed by AI and the customer does not even realize it.

But nothing we can do about that.

As always great thought provoking discussion from you.

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Speaking of technology.
I know I dislike calling a company and getting a machine, but I have grown to accept it.

But getting robocall? I hate hate HATE that.
If I am not worth a few minutes of their time, they are not worth mine.
I hang up and block the number.

You as well.
Hat tip.

Monkey with interest rates to slow the economy (or, rather, “cool off” the economy" :roll_eyes: ) and you get …

… a slowed economy. It follows that employment will suffer from that. :man_shrugging:

ABSOLUTELY
The “Phillips Curve” (high interest = high unemployment) was rejected only as a fixed unmoving curve.
The relationship moves around too much to be a “curve” in the traditional sense. I don’t think any sober economist doubts the relationship.

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