[SoumenD]

Originally Posted by Artyom

Can someone please shed some light on them:-

1. Are majority of these Layoffs for a particular IT skillet like Programming or Software developers or HR etc or is it across all IT domains ?

Talent Acquisition(HRs) teams are heavily hit as there's a hiring freeze almost everywhere and then most of these teams are contract based. But then, if you go by the linkedin posts, looks like techies as well are affected in a big way. Loads of H1B holders have their clocks ticking.

Originally Posted by Artyom

2. Is the criteria for layoffs based upon how much you are earning, as in Employee X who Earns more than ABC per year will be sacked or is it a blanket firing to just reduce the head count?

Different firms have different criteria. Some do it based on performance. Again not necessarily the employee is a bad performer but managers are asked to maintain a bell curve and the ones at the bottom of the curve get the stick. Then there are firms which go by LIFO approach, an employee can't do much about it. Finally firms decide to close down certain departments and outsource it, in such cases employees are either asked to leave or are handed over to the outsourcing company for a minimum period criteria(as per handover contract) post which its the outsourcing firm's call whether to keep them or not.

Originally Posted by Artyom

3. I see most of the layoffs are in the top IT companies what we call the cream OR is this prevalent in smaller companies also?

Top companies get highlighted more, thats all. Basically wherever numbers are hit, these layoffs happen. Lot of them aren't even reported and showed as general attrition when employees were actually forced to resign. The reason you hear about Big Techs more is because they were hailed to God-Level in recent times. Posts on linkedin titled 'One day to Day One' were literally flooding. Their aspirational value made them so popular that these layoffs got highlighted in a big way.

Originally Posted by Artyom

4.People who are on reasonable package are at less risk of losing jobs. Is that a correct assumption? Reasonable package by Industry standards I mean and not the atrocious numbers we saw during the recent hiring. :-)

Nop. In Corporate world there's nothing called a 'Safe Job'. Everyone right from a CEO till a Janitor is dispensable. Only thing matters is 'numbers' for the firm. If their numbers are hit, anybody can get affected irrespective of the tenure or salary. Period!!!

So what one can do to mitigate this is to keep upskilling and staying employable as you never know when the lightning strikes. And ofcourse spend and invest judiciously. Save for the rainy days & have sufficient insurance(term and medical) backup.

[GutsyGibbon]

Originally Posted by poloman

Reports suggest that 30-40% of the people who were laid of in US companies are Indians on immigrant visas. Linkedin is filled with posts from such people, that they have only 2 months to land in a new job or may have to leave US. What normally happen to such people? In current scenario even half of them are not going to get a decent job in 2 months? Can they stay on using some loopholes?

Presumably most of them might have done higher studies in US and huge education loans to service.

Goog has had a decent layoff package, financially they will be fine. 16 weeks salary + 2 weeks for every additional year of experience + last years bonus + vacation pay + 6 months medical insurance.

GC is based on labor certification that there are no Americans with minimum qualifications available, that is a hard sell now. So hard for others to think long term.

[v1p3r]

Are we discussing US FANG layoffs or Indian startup layoffs? They are two very different things based on very different economics.

[GutsyGibbon]

Originally Posted by PreludeSH

Its also true that they might not think too much and layoff for short term advantages, pacify investors etc

This report out of stanford details a reason for concern. One of the reasons for companies making record profits is - others are laying off, so its a good time. What explains the recent Tech layoffs -
https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05...ayoffs-worried

[AppyS]

Before

https://twitter.com/gurgavin/status/...wAJf75-Zg&s=19

After

https://twitter.com/gurgavin/status/...iIEKtWUjQ&s=19

How do you sustain with this, pay inflated salaries and still deliver amazing dividends?
Even in the Indian context, not only are the salary shoppers who in their own words are making ridiculous HAY while the sun shines, at risk but even the normal regular pay bracket folks also repeatedly will keep being put under pressure when cost optimization drives are initiated. I hire myself and have avoided falling in to ridiculous demands thus far, but can't say the same of my peers. At one point getting a qualified 7 yr Exp developer was close to hiring a 4 Yr Exp dev in Paris, not withstanding the fact the the onshore guy had a better work ethic and delivered better quality with lesser experience. Salaries must be normalized to fair standards(Not Infy/Wipro standards) soon, or else the Indian market itself will lose its charm for offshoring as some of us are already seeing/hearing.
For me the basic question one must ask themselves, is what is the bottom line profit the company makes, and whether you asking for your 4x,5x,10x expectations justify your standing in terms of the value being delivered each day?

[Malyaj]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

Are we discussing US FANG layoffs or Indian startup layoffs? They are two very different things based on very different economics.

Indeed they are. Many Indian companies, and not just in the tech sector, are treating the global layoffs as a sort of 'lead indicator', even though their own businesses may not be at risk in the near term. Don't underestimate the power of negative thinking. Every time the discussion of 'job market' comes up in non-work get togethers, the mood suddenly turns sombre, faces sulk and silence follows, although there is no evidence to indicate that the malaise is spread far and wide. HRs and managers have been conditioned to believe that hiring needs to stop or restricted to strictly necessary. Well, prevention is better than cure.

Originally Posted by AppyS

For me the basic question one must ask themselves, is what is the bottom line profit the company makes, and whether you asking for your 4x,5x,10x expectations justify your standing in terms of the value being delivered each day?

This is a question company chiefs need to ask themselves. Old economy companies have a better handle on what level of staffing and what level of salaries are viable. That decision making is easier for them because manpower is not their biggest cost, but capacity is, and the economics of that capacity is fairly predictable. They just need to treat manpower as an overhead and do allocation using some judgement. For software companies manpower is the capacity and it is very difficult to ascertain if that is being utilised optimally. This ambiguity has thus far worked in the favour of the individuals, some of whom have a very skewed understanding of their value. In absence of this understanding, the value is pegged at whatever the highest bidder can pay for it. This decoupling of the cost of input from what the client can pay is at the root of many troubles.

[apachelongbow]

The balloon had to burst some day. What made people believe that this insane IT sector growth and expansion would continue? When the pandemic stuck, the 'real' economy, the core sectors bore the brunt. With a loss in business arose the need to streamline costs. Most quickly bankrolled large IT automation processes, optimisation drives etc due to which lot of IT and IT enabled companies made money. Due to work from home and the lock downs, the IT hardware companies, tech and online education firms made a killing. However this gravy train derailed as soon as covid was over and the real world got back to their jobs.
In the hindsight it was stupid of tech companies to assume that work from home was the new normal and everyone liked living in a metaverse so to speak.

Personally I think that currently the tech industry is right sizing and in a few quarters it should be back to a smaller normal. Yes the dalgona coffee kings and queens and staycation/wfh lovers will cry over their job losses, but hey you were partying when the rest of the world was in tears.

[vj_torqueaddict]

Yes the dalgona coffee kings and queens and staycation/wfh lovers will cry over their job losses, but hey you were partying when the rest of the world was in tears.

What has this anything got to do with WFH lovers. I am one. Been doing from past 2 years. It's official for us, there is no going back. Quality of life has increased significantly and my health. Let's not take every opportunity to diss WFH supporters, we have a separate thread for it to discuss pros and cons.

[Small Bot]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

The balloon had to burst some day. What made people believe that this insane IT sector growth and expansion would continue?

..

Personally I think that currently the tech industry is right sizing and in a few quarters it should be back to a smaller normal. Yes the dalgona coffee kings and queens and staycation/wfh lovers will cry over their job losses, but hey you were partying when the rest of the world was in tears.

I agree with the first part, and disagree with the second.

Yes, you are right. There's only so much air you can inflate even in the best of tyres. It definitely was time to right-size, though there are areas in this restructuring process where the companies could have done better.

The second part seems to imply that nobody who worked from home was impacted by Covid or other lockdown-related difficulties. That is untrue and not backed by data. In my previous company, a survey threw out results in 2022 that WFH staff opting for psychological support for clinical depression etc. had increased manifold.

Moving away from WFH, as somewhat a student of psychology, it is interesting to see a you-fellows-earned-so-much-for-so-long-so-you-deserve-this-now kind of schadenfreude in several responses all over this thread. I'm not pointing fingers at anybody, just saying that it is interesting to see.

Redundancies have been happening in almost every sector over the last three years and companies have been closing down sites and businesses rather frequently, just that the FAANG meltdown probably appears larger as it happened in a short period of time.

[AZT]

Originally Posted by tracerspiff

As someone who recently woke up to a nonfunctioning email and disconnected Slack, here are my $0.02.

I knew that these inflated salaries were just a blip and I made my share of hay while the sun shone so brilliantly. I was mentally prepared for a correction but I am a little overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it.

Even though I was expecting something to happen soon, it did sting a little when you wake up on a Monday morning and find the access cut off.

Since I always had the gut feeling that bad days are ahead, I have enough squirreled away to last me at least 2 years. My only worry is the gap in my resume the longer it takes for me to land another job.

Can I ask what the severance packages are like here. In the US/Canada I hear it's ~ 1 month per year of service

[balenoed_]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

...wfh lovers will cry over their job losses, but hey you were partying when the rest of the world was in tears.

Eh! Where is this coming from without any basis? Trust me, my WFH days are more hectic than WFO, for me.

On a lighter note, the party is what I actually miss when doing a WFH.

[Tucker48]

Currently white collar employees are being laid off and after some time it will be blue collar employees.

NOW, these tech giants won't be able to convince anyone that their future is secured. BUT, most people will forget what these tech giants did in a year or two.

Can't blame the organizations, they are made up of people like us. Can't blame people; forget, forgive and move on is the best thing to do in most scenarios.

But what can be done is to hold the people at the top accountable for this fiasco. Set an example, the right one!

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by Tucker48

Currently white collar employees are being laid off and after some time it will be blue collar employees.

NOW, these tech giants won't be able to convince anyone that their future is secured. BUT, most people will forget what these tech giants did in a year or two.

Can't blame the organizations, they are made up of people like us. Can't blame people; forget, forgive and move on is the best thing to do in most scenarios.

But what can be done is to hold the people at the top accountable for this fiasco. Set an example, the right one!

Why an year? If the MAANG companies put out an ad today for recruitment there will be a million applicants .

[DigitalOne]

It is now the turn of the more "traditional" software giants to cut workforce

IBM, SAP Announce Job Cuts In Latest Tech Layoffs

Job cuts at big tech firms does not seem to take a breather as SAP and IBM became the latest in announcing layoffs joining the likes of Google, Microsoft, Facebook parent Meta, Amazon and other big tech titans.

IBM on Wednesday announced 3,900 layoffs as part of some asset divestments and missed its annual cash target, dampening cheer around beating revenue expectations in the fourth quarter, news agency Reuters reported.

In another development, SAP said on Thursday it planned to cut 3,000 jobs, or 2.5 per cent of its global workforce...

Source

[100Kmphormore]

As being one of the affected, My only question is this; how ate senior executives able to keep their jobs and not fired like us, especially HR general managers and directors as not much hiring activity is going on and the executives actually doing the work are made to leave. Their only excuse - market conditions. Big executives like Satya Nadella and Sundar pichai who talk of empathy and understanding still pocket their millions. Tim cook is the only one who has made an impression. I am biweekly in touch with my manager and haven't returned my laptop yet demanding proper documentation of the whole thing to me by email. Once i asked that they aren't back yet