Why Tech Layoffs Don’t Reflect the Job Market | WSJ
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ธ.ค. 2022
- The tech sector has cut about 50,000 jobs in November.
The recent headlines about tech layoffs don't seem to match broader economic indicators, which show a strong job market and a historically low unemployment rate. WSJ's Gunjan Banerji explains the disconnect. Illustration: Ali Larkin
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I got laid off from Microsoft recently. Not sure the recession is the reason for the mass layoffs. Believe companies are cutting projects they wanted to cut a long time ago and using the recession as a way out. Made a video about my experience as well!
Maybe you weren’t worth the pay and they realized that 😂😂
@@ocean6882 That's racist!
Do real work. Look at all the trade jobs. Huge mechanic shortage.
Job market added a lot of low pay, low skill jobs. While tech layoffs were on high pay, high skill jobs.
Exactly
I wouldn't call a zoom worker a "high skill" job.
@@miloramos7646 Can you describe what a zoom worker is?
@@miloramos7646 Try it sometime, it's much trickier than you'd think!
Yea tech workers worked 2 hrs at each of their 3 full time jobs, doing nothing
I am studying for tech certification for my career but things are changing so quick.
I lived through the massive tech layoffs of the years 2001-2002. the years that followed were the best I have ever had for my tech career
Yep, lots of upside. If one survives it.
My friend is happy he got layoff at Meta and he is not firing unemployment. I wanted get layoff as well. The package is just too good when got layoff in those big tech.
They still need us more than we need them
This time is different. 2023 won’t be good
I believe 2023 will be super rough
The irony is that WSJ announced layoffs just as this video was being made!
I dont know why they laid people off, for the past 3 years all they have been talking about covid, they should be hiring now, since now they have to report actual news and not just covid, pandemic bs
One of the things that made these layoffs not counted besides timing is the fact that they always come with severance pay for 3+ months. So those are not counted as unemployment as they are still being paid.
Their choice of stock footage is perfect. Got laid off from software engineering role at Twitter? Take this job opening bagging groceries at Costco! Lose your Product Manager role at Amazon? Put on this vest and head down to the warehouse!
The quality of the job matters.
Tbh: there are too many tech jobs atm. Currently there are so many jobs in tech there’s a hiring gap that companies can’t fill. So we have a dual crisis. An unemployment crisis and lack of skills crisis.
The people who are getting laid off are useless zoom "workers".
Sometimes you gotta adapt. Not everyone can go to med or law school.
@@ckrgksdkrak How long do ya suppose it will be before we see a US Law AI bot. Like LawGPT citing relevant precedents and obscure loopholes to get defendants acquitted?
I'm pretty sure AI and ML has already been used in the bio-medical and pharmaceutical industries extensively.
If we didn't live in such a profit-driven, inflation-ravaged dystopia, one might almost be able to view the future optimistically. But nope, still dystopia. Still zero sum.
The costco bagger is more valuable than a twitter employee.
Most layoffs include severance payments that delay them showing up claiming unemployment. I guess it will start showing up in 2 or 3 months, but not this month.
Tech companies added thousands of jobs during the pandemic to meet the demand since everybody was home. When the pandemic shifted to epidemic, the demand decreased hence the layoffs started. Tech companies are basically going back to their normal employment levels of 2019 before the pandemic. These kinds of news are trying to scare people off and that might start to chain reaction of events to create recession.
not really just because of that there are tech layoffs because tech was utilizing huge piles of cheap low interest borrowing and now that the fed made money expensive to borrow bamn no more able to pay devs.
You are wrong. Tech actually added tens of thousands employees.
Still over 70,000 tech workers layoff. Which will create competition
@@ee2376 Everyone I knew who got laid off in the past 6 months has found a job. I am in the Bay Area.
"we created 5 million jobs this year" "i know, i have 3 of them and still can't pay my rent"
the number of jobs to unemployed doesn't mean anything if so many of them have bad wages and benefits. people need to live and pay bills
bang on 🤣🤣 the need of the hour is controlling inflation so that people will be able to pay the bills.
Learn to code....oh, they have AI for that.
WSJ makes great videos. Keep it up.
Tech jobs isn’t the center of the economy universe, it’s part of it.
Tech workers are extremely overpaid. We'll be fine without them. It'll also improve local housing markets a bit. Overall, sucks to be a tech worker right now, but good for everyone else
@@billr5842 they are a part of the economy and I don’t want to see them lose their jobs no more then I want to see anyone else lose their job
@@billr5842that’s idiotic, it seems like you are just jealous they made so much money😂
The Oil and Gas business lost >100k jobs in 2015-16. Not a mention in the press. The techies loom large in their own minds and in the media.
It’s more “sexy”, more “glamorous” than reporting on oil & gas industry. Gets more eyeballs to click. I’m just fine with that, leave the other high paying sectors out of the news so young grads don’t flood into those spaces and depress wages. Let em’ stick to tech as a major.
The semi-conductor manufacturing industry is slowing. My company has already initiated layoffs
What's the point in having a job if wages don't keep up with inflation and ppl can't afford to live
My heart goes out to all those tech Bros
thanks man
Yes, they're probably in line-ups at food banks and soup-kitchens, or in a park with a tent. Poor them.
Now say the same to all those manufacturing jobs outsourced to China. Will you ?
I don't have any sympathy. They were way overpaid and destroyed local housing markets.. they'll have to get a real job like everyone else. The gravy train is over
It's just like the pandemic. If you are a non-essential worker to your company's operations, you are expendable. Twitter is a great example. The site's functionality is fairly simple and there really hasn't been that much innovation since its inception; at least compared to other tech companies. You can't tell me that all 7,500 people were essential to its operations.
So the massive homeless is still working then? Tha fact is it's increasing at incredible pace. The homeless in all major cities
@@olearysbf6580are all a by product of inadequate Government policy that is largely against Greater Business Activity, those that are essential are those that are figured into keeping everyone else’s lights on and lives safe even the government goes out of its way to pay for Electrical Engineers like myself 🤷🏽♂️
@@___Truth___ Many of the homeless are unemployable due to mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse. Having more business and profits won't solve that.
There needs to be a serious rehabilitation program for the homeless, or else find a way to drag them back into work.
Twitter mostly got rid of it's parasitic elements- managers, recruiters, HR, etc. Not the SWEs that are important to keep the company going.
People. Its called recession. Even sane people was forced to live in vans and tents . Just experience it
In recent years, there's been a lot of micro-bubbles where relatively small sectors rise and fall with little correlation to the wider economy.
True true but what's the marginal GDP per person laid off? Start adding those up and you see the outsized GDP contribution of sectors like tech vs. others that maybe employ more people. This will have knock on effects on tax income and the government's ability to successfully fund its projects.
do you think the government cares about funding, they just print more and more money....
If the layoff data doesn't reflect in November data, why don't you wait till December data is available before publishing this video?
Oh noes.... instead of working for big tech companies these tech workers now will have tech jobs waiting in finincial/medical and other sectors.
Poor them still doing tech...
It doesn't matter how many hundreds of thousands of fast food jobs you add, that does not equate a "hot job market".
I don't think the Fed cares what jobs are counted- a job is a job in their eyes.
So the massive homeless is still working then? Tha fact is it's increasing at incredible pace. The homeless in all major cities
This. They need to clarify a lot of these jobs that were added to the economy are low paying part time McJobs (retail, fast food and other service type jobs) They don't pay enough for even mid-tier COL metro areas.
Thank you WSJ
Part-time industry alternate is time zone reversal but built spaces
Layoff was of high salary employees. Their loss gonna affect businesses too which will lead to job cuts in blue collar. Effect will be visible in 1 year.
Tech does not equal good pay
The people who are getting laid off are useless zoom "workers".
Are your brain dead??? Do you know what Automatic means???
Oooosh firing some Snapchat employees is going to affect railway laborers
Why are you making this comment over and over again, are you on Meta and Twitteres PR team? Get a life
So coders should learn to weld?
I know right ???
My friend graduated this year in Computer Science and has been looking for a job for 7 months now
Dyploma is not the only thing that matters in tech industrie the experience does. He needs to continue studying the main stream subjects like web development.
@@hrivera4201 What a BS! Back in early 2000’s I was hired working on multimillion hi-tech just two months after I graduated. And I was literally headhunted. These days it’s taking months of ridiculous interviews to take on simple web projects.
Uh huh…just wait for it
Tech companies provide severance package to the laid off tho. E.g. Amazon provides impacted people two month salary and extra payment based on tenure. Those people are still in Amazon's payroll and actively search for new jobs. I think when the package ends, we will see the true numbers.
This, most are not even writing as laid off till March of 23.. So April / June will count these numbers + 2023 will have huge cuts .. So we are getting 5% + labor next year
Tech was very bloated and is now returning to lean models like the rest of the economy. It was to be expected.
I agree there is to many tech workers now so now the tech employers want people that have very high degrees and higher experiences
H1b visa workers are not counted as American workers in the report
Well banking sectors are also announcing layoffs…
But for those of us who are graduating with degrees in tech because of the market, maybe we can just get a job at Costco. The loans to and tuition plus all of the energy spent to get to the point where we can fill degrees in a field that was booming and now there’s no hope. It does actually affect a lot of ppl.
I graduated during the previous recession, I was under the impression my degree would lead to a job and it never did, I lived with my parents for a year or two and found a job that appealed to my personal interests which helped me pivot to something else, just remember that the future is promising but it is NEVER promised, stay flexible and keep an open mind, and be wary of anything that seems like a get rich quick scheme like the tech industry has been promoting its jobs as for the last decade
Tech people's job is to invent the system that replaces them...and all of is eventually...tech utopianism isn't real.
So so true. Most important and accurate comment on the internet. Writing programs to eliminate the person writing them
As someone who didn't get a degree in computer science, do you guys and gals think tech is still worth pursuing? I recently started getting heavy into coding and was considering a bootcamp. what do y'all think?
I have 6 years of experience and studied in 2 universities, sofware engineering and computer science, at the height of the tech hype I was simultaneously working 3 jobs and one internship (the internship was because it was in a country I wanted to relocate to)
Fast forward a couple months to this year, right now I have one kind of freelance/contract job and if I lose it I am screwed, I applied to hundreds of positions abroad and hundreds at home, got about 5 or 6 interviews, after that no job yet. I keep working hard on what I've got and I keep coding for hobby and working on my personal project that I will try to monetize but may fail since it is getting super competitive to get users due to lower attention spam and high acquisition cost of new users for any new idea.
So no, it is not worth pursuing. Any job that you can lern on a bootcamp is not worth pursuing. It may be nice to learn and you may in the future maybe get a regular job, but I can see programmers being the "dishwasher" job of the future, something anyone can learn how to do and would do in case they can't find anything better but would rather not because it is stressful and the pay is getting worse, with the difference that I don't find many unemployed dishwashers and the ones I know got their jobs after a few interviews, while the programmers I know send hundreds of CVs and still can't get anything
If I could start over I would study some profession that is gatekept by a diploma, like doctor, lawyer or something that other can't take without the papers, and maybe only do programming on the side as a backup, but for the goal of making money I'd never spend money again learning it and I would for sure try not to rely on programming to pay my bills
I’m quite surprised how easily WSJ reports 50k layoffs in a months. It used to be that 10k layoff announcement was considered a major event in the economy.
Other points on this video. Layoffs of STEM workers doesn’t sound great at all as it suggests that economy is losing it’s competitive edge in science and technology. There’s hardly any advanced economy with math PhD delivering pizza’s and packing groceries. The narrative from Fed “don’t worry about tech, we have plenty blue collar jobs” suggests exactly this: economy no longer needs educated workforce and shifts towards manual labour.
These days blue collar jobs are not attractive because of ridiculous covid requirements to wear a mask whole day and take vaccine jabs against the will. Many simply got sick in such crazily unhealthy environment and avoid such jobs as much as they can.
Higher interest rates have hurt Tech and needed the layoffs. They were bloated.
it only affects great and well paid job market :))
No. Most of these layoffs were office workers and drivers and such.
1. Job market is specific to each sector for each individual, a person who has a career in tech can't change jobs to become a doctor.
2. Job vacancies are not a guarantee of job hiring. Some job vacancies have no intention of hiring, but rather to survey the job market trends.
3. Job opportunities need to be realistic in expectations and working environment. Poor working environment and low benefits are why most jobs are not filled up.
it's in line with stock market corrections, grossly overpriced tech papers going down closer to their actual value. I don't know about extra covid hiring.. Obviously these people will not take a blue collar job. I expect new startups from these people. Don't forget that lending is still cheap with high inflation. Depending on your inflation expectation of course.
Big tech company layoffs don't mean a thing to the rest of the job market. Most of these layoffs are in USA about 97%. They can go to Asian markets for the same joba
No trades aren’t safe turn over and bs firing/layoffs are. Rampant in trades rn
I have a friend who is affected. She has 2 months of active buff period to look for job while getting paid, then 4 more months pay without working. I think the Tech companies lay offs are not like the other companies. They might have N+1, N+2, N+3 months to find job while they are still getting paid. That's another reason while Tech lay-offs are not reflecting on the job market.
sort out your audio levels
Compare Apple To Apples
Door-Dash is a " second job " type of employment , and that in a " gig economy "
"Tech Workers" sounds more like the skilled middleclass office worker
The kind that won't being buying homes now that they are out of work, ( causing a cascade effect through the economy )
Except due to the prestige of the title, most tech companies have nothing to do with science
Yes, but we want to count every Uber driver that gets axed as a "tech job layoff" in order to sound ominous and sell clicks
DoorDash laid off corporate jobs. Not delivery cyclists.
Ports are empty my company is doing layoffs
Love it when the WSJ has to remind techies that they are insignificant when it comes to productivity and growth while they're being overwhelmed with bad news from a sector let me remind you that lied about its own credibility and now is getting the shorter end of the stick.
why? not everything happens in a computer. for example jerome powell doesn't have to about know computers to steal money yet he can make tech layoffs
Yet he created many of the useless tech jobs trough low rates. So yeah he can do that... That's his job...
Now that we know the published numbers false, i think a revision of your entire justification is warranted
Silly view. Inflation keeps unemployment low. Germany had 4% unemployment rate during hyperinflation
That's literally not a thing, and no reason to believe they're connected.
@@samsonsoturian6013 that is one of the justification central banks and the federal reserve give for inflation. To keep maximum employment.
@@kevintartis4421 inflation and employment simply are not corelated.
@@samsonsoturian6013 correct. It's about money supply. Increasing the money supply quickly causes low unemployment. It's a side effect. Inflation and low unemployment are just side effects.
@@kevintartis4421 DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS I AM SAYING TO YOU NOW!!! THERE"S SIMPLY NO CONNECTION BETWEEN MONEY SUPPLY AND JOBS!!!\
Increasing inflation is sometimes like a tax, where diluting the amount of money out there allows the government to fund operations. But sometimes higher inflation is used to incentivize exports as people dump their own currency and instead take payment from the country they're exporting to
What is crazy is that when Twitter cut 50% of its workforce, people assumed that the company would fall apart and the app would crash in weeks. Well, here we are amd Twitter is still out there. So, what were those other 50% doing? Honest question - I honestly do not get it.
They were censoring free speech on Twitter, or devising new ways to do so. Hence why their absence now makes no difference and Twitter keeps humming along just fine.
Clearly the layoffs don’t add up to the new hires. That’s why fed is worried.
Is it because tech lay offs are not shiny ?
what about McDonald’s layoff and the Disney’s layoff? Are they representative enough?
What's crazy is you got blue collar jobs that pay more than a lot of white collar jobs.
Tech layoffs doesn't reflected in the job market cause thats just a part of the economy.There are other industries as well.
I hear that former Facebook and Twitter product managers are now working in the coffee shops they went into every day
facebooks most famous product manager has his own night shows. you probably have seen him on tiktok and ig reels.
The problem of layoff in tech industrie are the financial institutions that are nor doing well at the stock exchange which pressure on the companies they invest, even over great tech companies and of course little startups.
This videos on TH-cam could be of enlightening.
1. The Myths of Venture Capital: Julia Ott
2. Billionaires about the Surge of Tech layoffs: Chamath Palihapitiya
Wait for trickle down effects.. Aka 'DEMAND SIDE ECONOMICS'
Amazon lays off people for a different reason than you think..Amazon lays off so they won't have to give raises..Amazon lays off every year,but at the same time continues to break ground on new hubs,cause Amazon lays off at this wharehouse,knowing the workers will go to the other hub,but at the original starting wage and they're already trained..Amazon will always need new workers at base pay to replace the ones about to get a raise..why are they laying off 10thousand,but are hiring at the same time for the holidays?..part-timers don't get raises..
I heard police departments across the country need officers. Maybe all these tech people can learn to fight crime.
Off course many techies work in the industrie of cybercriminality and are in the frontline of battle agains cybercriminals protecting us for example from being stealth of our money at he bank sector.
There is like hundred thousand unemployed people and somehow amongst them is me who has university education and singing career - let's call it like this if they actually were singing and not just clicking. All of it is build as a model, no not model 3 you silly, work/learn all day and have evening rehearsals and concerts and a wish if we could have it someday. My terms for my government would be give me a job, pay me monthly or delete everything, but then pay me compensation so I could buy myself a car. Your government will say - you wish what you want, but it's not our problem and we don't have to choose any of these scenarios. Everytime I feel - must write something or i'm getting nothing.
This is why the govts' want to import huge numbers if desperate people.
We need to understand why Russia don't focus on IT although having capability and resources, same for other European countries
because meat and potatoes are what really matter, always
This is the not accurate it leaves out Important context for one the jobs that can’t find workers either don’t pay enough or it’s a bad job second and most importantly this tech company’s have been growing since they started this layoffs and the current hiring freeze shows how the industry is not growing ….
Why? simple, 10 million jobs to fill.. D'oh..
Any job that can be replaced by technology is not safe, true skill jobs are forever. Also theres a abundance of tech workers….the same thing goes to mental health workers everyone does it. So your experience and higher degree has to standout
It actually tells you something, that most jobs are cheap paid, and that's why people don't wanna take it. Only 19% (I guess we can round it up to 30% to consider non sp500 companies that are still big) of the jobs are actually paying good. And probably, all the positions at these companies are already fully filled now, that's why they start firing like crazy. Gotta compete for the 1/3! lol
This did not age well
once the rate 5% targeted by the fed is achieved, the labor mkt would fully reflect the unemployment rate 4.7%, also targeted by the fed.
Unemployment rate is 3.7 unchanged from the previous month. With inflation ( it is down from 9.4 to 7.1%) getting lower the FED will wait till February to make the next move.
and now you are facing layoffs... it's not just a story anymore is it?
The TLDR of the video: "Don't worry tech layoff doesn't matter" - the reality "Tech layoffs are just the start, other industries will follow soon"
The tech layoffs are not just for US employees. The tech job market is experiencing correction.
Better hurry up and lower those rates before some of these tech companies go bankrupt
They took ur jorbz!
Retired early or just simply passed away?
Can you put the volume any lower? Jeez
Distinguish between white and blue collar
Not true - many marginalized groups are not counted as 'workers'
There are too many techies with almost nothing to do in many companies. It is just a reality that they need to reduce the number so that most are productive. I have seen many techies have not more than a couple of hours of work on most days.
It's time to stop these layoffs for good; too little staffing will be straining a company's daily operations. A company with a minimum of 300% extra staff personnel is required for daily operations and any other incident events.
I wanna see this house of cards fall apart.
This is total BS. He’s telling you the opposite of what’s really happening. No one is shopping the malls for Christmas!
Carvana is dying tho
Learn to weld? 😅
To be honest get lay-off it's not a good experience, young generation has to be trained on other skills, today's economy has hit bad,hope Federal government stop this insane hike rates,they will be to blame, for the consequences, thanks.
It’s an election year coming up is why
It’s a whole lot worse since this video was posted- sadly.
how? im getting a tech degree
Learn to code....oh, they have AI for that.
🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🤠🤠🤠🤠🤠
Powell? Is that guy who is a clueless sociologist working like a intruder in economy?
Let's 20,000 people get laid off we have 200,000 net jobs more every month.
She has a sloan sabbith vibe to her
Justice for Shireen Abu Akleh
Who
So the massive homeless is still working then? Tha fact is it's increasing at incredible pace. The homeless in all major cities
I know it’s an American Chanel, but I’m sure you are aware that you have some global audience, and some of the companies you are referring to, are very global, like Amazon and so on. So the way you structured this video, and the numbers you use, should reflect that greatly, but it looks like you localised it too much.
Im so happy those liberal non technical staff are let go
They need to be removed from power
Don't feel bad for this techies.... they make more in a WEEK than YOU make in two months!!
Extremely misleading. Software Engineers, even if laid off, can find a job rather quickly if they are good. Software Development is in extreme demand. That’s why we get paid the big bucks. Web developers are kinda useless though. Though I’m biased ofc
Yes, but that doesn't sell clicks.
Those top guys are too far and few, and actually not many are needed. Meanwhile the ordinary ones need to feed themselves somehow.
@@prashanthb6521 Yeah, you're actually a big difference between a certified coder who simply speaks the language and the electrical engineers who change fundamental machine language.
She is beautiful!
So the massive homeless is still working then? Tha fact is it's increasing at incredible pace. The homeless in all major cities
There's not that many homeless people. Although some fools simply change the definition of homeless until a statistically significant figure emerges. For instance, my state defined homeless as having no mailing address, but most of the people that meet that definition live in an RV or rent a single room from a friend.
@@samsonsoturian6013 are you SURE?? Try look up homeless portland
@@olearysbf6580 I know without looking it is not as bad as you want me to believe.