30 Jan Biting at the edges of truth
Image created by me using Canva.
“Is This the Real Reason Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft Are Having Layoffs?
Are 51,000 people losing their jobs because their employers want to shift the balance of power?”
Oooooh. Do tell.
“Is the current wave of big-tech layoffs really intended as a way of weakening tech employees’ confidence and gaining a stronger negotiating position for their employers? That’s what several tech industry observers believe, among them John Cook, co-founder of GeekWire, and Vice reporter Maxwell Strachan.
Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft are laying off a total of 51,000 employees. Each company says it is taking this very difficult step out of necessity and with tremendous regret. The reasons given in each case are the same, almost word-for-word. Each is some version of this: In the wake of the pandemic, we experienced growth in demand and increased our workforce to fulfill that demand. With a slowing economy and shifting market, we now see that we mistakenly hired too many, and we must correct that by letting some people go.” -Inc.com, Ibid.
A few thoughts:
+ It’s not just Big Tech. People need to stop pushing this bogus narrative that Big Tech / Silicon Valley has layoffs and that’s sad and all but hey: it’s not happening anywhere else. Bullsh*t!
+ If the reasons sound the same, basically verbatim, you can bet it was planned that way.
“‘Yes,’ boasted Roosevelt in his Charleston speech in 1935, ‘we are on our way back, not just by pure chance, my friends, not just by a turn of the wheel, of the cycle. We are coming back more soundly than ever because we are planning it that way, and don’t let anybody tell you differently.'” –MetaBunk
+ How full of regret is any company if they have a layoff and then come up with cash to make a big investment in something else? (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-23/microsoft-makes-multibillion-dollar-investment-in-openai)
“What if all that is a big, fat lie? What if the real reason for the layoffs is that big tech company leaders, weary of catering to the whims of ever-more-sought-after engineers and data scientists, simply decided that they’d had enough, and that they would put these techies in their place by making them fear for their jobs?
If this is true, it shouldn’t be surprising. For years, employers, especially big tech companies, have competed to recruit hard-to-hire tech talent, offering a wide range of enticements, from signing bonuses in the six figures, chefs, massages, time to work on projects of their choosing, lavish stock options, and on and on. Meanwhile, tech employees have felt ever-more-empowered to criticize their employers or even publicly protest when their companies’ policies displease them. To any business leader who grew up in a traditional hierarchy where bosses gave orders and subordinates obeyed them, the life of a boss in the tech industry must have seemed topsy-turvy.” -Inc.com, Ibid.
Hmm. *scratches imaginary devil beard thoughtfully* Gosh, you know, it’s almost like someone should have been talking about this a helluva long time before now. Oh wait! I was.
In Saturday Broadcast 6, I warned you about PIPs and layoffs and Zuck advising people to “self select” out the door. In Saturday Broadcast 9, I warned you of the leaked BoA memo about the balance of power going back to Corpo America. Can you imagine how far behind the 8 ball you’d be if you were only just now connecting the dots?
Wow. You can find that article in its entirety here: https://theintercept.com/2022/07/29/bank-of-america-worker-conditions-worse/
Does this give anyone else a flashback to the Wayne Pankratz situation about high gas prices and its impact on workers?
Allegedly, it was Machiavelli who first observed, “Never waste an opportunity offered by a good crisis.” It’s important that you know this. Does Corporate America intend to keep wages high to help you make it through the coming recession? Hell no. Wayne is saying in this email what I’m sure countless others have already war-gamed out in private. “Let’s just wait for the workers to get squeezed so badly they have to come crawling back… then we’ll cut pay and ensure they stay enslaved to us. Bu-waa-ha-ha!”
–https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2022/04/22/thx-wayne/
Let’s just sit back and wait for the recession – let’s let the inflation take the prices higher. Let’s let the housing bubble burst. Let’s watch things kind of get to more of a panic-stricken mode. So then we can squeeze the workers they’re going to have to come crawling back. They’re going to have to keep whatever job they’re in when the bottom drops out. So then we’ll give them pay cuts and make sure that they stay wage slaves here. If you think that those kinds of discussions are not going on behind closed doors, I beg to differ. And this email chain is proof positive that those discussions are going on behind closed doors. We just happened to find out about one of them.
-“Fiending for the Recession,” https://www.buzzsprout.com/1125110/10494627, episode published on April 28, 2022.
I have been on this blog and on my podcast FOR MONTHS warning y’all about this. If you thought Corporate America would not take advantage of a recession, inflation, etc., I dunno what to tell you.
Now we’re here.
Sadly, this is only the tip of the iceberg, IMO.
–https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2022/08/02/obvious-clear-workplace-feudalism/ published on August 2, 2022
I hope you heard this intel months ago and planned accordingly.
“Why is it just big tech?
Inflation, rising interest rates, and the possibility of a recession affect the entire economy. And tech industry leaders aren’t the only ones doing an end-of-year review and 2023 forecasting. So why are tech companies virtually the only ones laying people off? With the exception of Goldman Sachs, which says it will lay off 8,000 employees, all the major layoffs of 2022 and 2023 so far have been at technology companies.” -Inc.com, Ibid.
*rolls eyes* I’ve warned you about all of this, too. Layoffs are NOT isolated to Big Tech. Or to real estate and banking. You will eventually get a narrative of, “Oopsy daisy! Big Tech and then huge companies and then mid-sized companies and then small mom & pop shops all had layoffs. Sorry!”
“If these companies overhired during the pandemic, why are they laying off longtime employees?
Tech company leaders explained that their layoffs resulted from overhiring during the worst of the pandemic. But if that really were the reason, you’d think all or most of the layoffs would be those pandemic-era hires. While I don’t have any statistics about this, it’s clear from social-media postings that many of the affected employees have been at their companies for a decade or more. It’s worth noting that those employees are likely to be highly paid, highly experienced, and perhaps have high expectations of their employers.” -Inc.com, Ibid.
It could be due to higher pay and a larger accrual of PTO. It could also be a purging of the dissidents. Look at Lord Elon: go along or leave. If someone is a new hire who was vetted for compliance with the agenda, they would be more likely to stay than someone who’s worked at the company for 8 years and sees through the BS. Is that the case? I dunno. But I’ve seen more than a few layoffs in my day and I’ve witnessed the purging of the dissidents before, too.
“Why are they forcing employees to compete to keep their jobs?
Both Facebook and Amazon have been widely reported to use ‘stack’ rankings, in which 10 to 15 percent of employees must be designated as low performers. Similarly, Google recently created a requirement that 6 percent of its workforce must receive a negative performance review, up from its previous requirement of 2 percent, according to Vice. Snap and Salesforce reportedly are requiring low performance reviews for 10 percent of their employees as well.” -Inc.com, Ibid.
Using PIPs (performance improvement plans) and raising metrics is an easy way to shove someone out the door, especially if you set the standards so high that not even Jesus could meet them. This is not a new tactic, nor is it new information. Remember the “gentlemen’s layoffs” bull? If you quit on your own, it’s easier and cheaper for the employer than getting fired or laid off.
“Obviously, employees engaged in competitions to stay employed are less likely to be activist, less likely to demand that their employers stop serving customers they disapprove of (such as ICE), and less likely to fight for higher pay and perks for themselves.” -Inc.com, Ibid.
This is a cult-like tactic used in Corpo America. We saw a similar thing in the NXIVM cult and I discussed this in Cult-Like Tactics Used in Corporate America & Why “Self-Help” Often Doesn’t Help on my podcast.
The profile of “Vanguard Week” reminded me so much of Corporate America that it hurt. Relay races, tug-of-war, volleyball games, songs and dances and tributes to the owner… yuck. But it’s all being done to tire you out so that you don’t ask questions about what’s actually going on.
–https://www.buzzsprout.com/1125110/6785926
Cult expert Rick Alan Ross calls them “high arousal techniques” and they are done deliberately to keep everyone busy and tired. Why? Because when you are busy and tired, you are less likely to look around at the madness and ask the rational question of: what the hell are we doing?
“Some observers see all this as a reasonable, and perhaps healthy, corrective in an industry where employees with certain skills are wildly overpaid, have unprecedented power, and are generally just too uppity. But I can’t help thinking that — if these layoffs really are about the balance of power between employer and employee — big tech leaders are being very short-sighted. After all, it was their choice to set off the arms race of compensation and perks in the first place. They could have chosen instead to let genuine caring for their employees, for their communities, and for the world at large be their biggest recruitment and retention tool. For all their talk about wanting employee ‘engagement,’ actions like these practically guarantee that employees will view them with mistrust and cynicism. And then, when the labor market for high-tech skills tightens up again — as demographics suggest it will — they’ll be forced to roll out huge salaries and lavish perks to try to lure those skeptical employees back again.” -Inc.com, Ibid. emphasis mine
😆 Yeah. OK.
I agree with this notion of Corpo America viewing the workers who participated in The Great Resignation as “too uppity.” No arguments there. Like Icarus, you flew too close to the sun, little peon, and now you must be corrected!
However:
+ Corpo America and investors and fat cats do not care if some journalist thinks they are being short-sighted. Nothing personal meant to the author– they don’t care about what I say either.
+ Genuine caring as a recruitment tool? What utopia! I’m sorry, I hate to be Little Miss Cynical here, but get real. These companies answer to the shareholders and the investors and the board of directors. NOT TO US. They care about making money, not about recruiting via genuine caring.
+ Talk about employee engagement and retention is, by and large, exactly that: talk. And it sure is cheap. Let’s care about LGBTQ+ during Pride Month. Let’s care about DEI when the marketing department tells us to. But otherwise, ha ha ha, no. I once worked on a project where a company asked me to help with DEI sourcing. I found some truly amazeballs candidates. You know who they ultimately hired? Two straight, young WASP males. Oh, but they care about diversity in the workplace LOL. Right.
+ The only demographics I know of that suggest a tightening up is that these boom/bust cycles happen and then happen and then happen. Twas ever thus. I think we’re into the bust cycle now and the notion that the market is going to tighten up again soon is bunk, IMO. I don’t see it happening in the near future. It feels like the author felt compelled to end the story on a high note, so we can dream about “huge salaries and lavish perks to try to lure those skeptical employees back again” and picture the employees and job seekers being back in the power position again soon. I surely wouldn’t bet the farm on that!
+ “After all, it was their choice to set off the arms race of compensation and perks in the first place.” Was it? I believe we have pretty clear, overt crony capitalism. What’s the difference between the state and Corpo America? They all seem to collude and be bedded down with one another. Wall Street asks for government money to bail them out yet the state also took wads of JP Morgan’s cash, too. We frequently see people going from government work back to Corpo America or Wall Street and vice versa. It’s not a rare and strange occurrence. So did Big Tech decide to set off an arms race of competition between one another? Did they engineer the labor market in that way by themselves? I’m gonna say I don’t freakin’ think so. Were they part of it? Yes. Was it all them and their idea alone? Hell no. *slips on tinfoil hat* To me, it looks something like this:
An omnibubble is created from low interest rates. ➡️ People are whipped into a frenzy of FOMO and YOLO that includes the housing market and job market. ➡️ People are told that they can hop across the job market forever because The Great Resignation will go on ad infinitum. They are likewise told that obscenely high real estate prices are here to stay and you had better go ahead and buy while the rates are 3 or 4% because hey: you can always ‘marry the house but date the rate.’ ➡️ The wheels start to fly off the economic jalopy we’re in. Inflation goes up. The Fed raises interest rates. The FOMO and YOLO cool off… and so do these manipulated markets.
Is Big Tech solely responsible for all of that? No. Get real.
“Since its founding, the Federal Reserve has had a hand in creating some of the largest bubbles in history. When the bank lowers interest rates, there is excess cash in the economy, making it relatively cheap for anyone to borrow. This creates malinvestment in the economy because while not everyone has profitable ideas, many more people can borrow, causing a bubble to form. Once the economy is deemed to be overheating, the bank raises interest rates. This forces the bubble to burst, and an economic downturn follows as a great deal of the malinvestment goes bust and people cannot borrow as cheaply anymore. To foster recovery, the Fed lowers rates again to boost investment, causing the entire cycle to repeat. This is precisely what occurred when the technology bubble burst in 2001, followed by the housing bubble in 2008. In fact, these two events are very closely tied together, which becomes evident through analysis of the monetary policies of that period. It was precisely the response to the 2001 crash that fostered the housing bubble in the first place.” –https://fee.org/articles/a-tale-of-two-bubbles-how-the-fed-crashed-the-tech-and-the-housing-markets/
To me, it’s more accurate to say: The Fed, the state, and Corpo America all colluded together to create this omnibubble.
Meanwhile, in the media, we seem to get articles or op-eds here and there that bite at the edges of truth but they don’t dive all the way in. Hmm. I wonder why that would be . . .
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