Tech industry layoffs rose 351 percent in 2019. Is a recession looming? | Hacker News Reader

Tech industry layoffs rose 351 percent in 2019. Is a recession looming?

salon.com

40 pointsweare13821 comments

Read the article and not once do they offer the data that would give this metric any real context. How much hiring was going on in that same period. For all we know 64K layoffs occurred in dying sectors of the industry while 100K jobs (made up hypothetical number) we created in new segments. Without context, 351% means nothing.

A recession is always looming. If we are not in one, it is looming.

Economists have successfully predicted five of the last three recessions, after all.

This economy is overdue for a correction. Manufacturing is already contracting, albeit somewhat distorted by the U.S.-China trade war. Many were predicting a recession three years ago, but the economy keeps defying gravity. How much longer this can last is anyone's guess.

Good old business cycle.

No. Layoffs don't equate to recession. Quite the contrary they represent increase in efficiency.

Wow, people during the Great Depression must have been really efficient. If only we were that efficient now....

Funny, I didn’t realize we saw an incredible number of jobs created during the Great Depression.

While I agree layoffs don’t equate recession they are often a precursor. Of course hirings should be considered too. Layoffs > hirings is almost always a bad sign for the economy.

Exactly. Especially with growing wages and shrinking revenues. Watch for the first uptick in unemployment claims. Companies will cut workers to make estimates.

I just got laid off because management overspent on engineering in FY19 and the sales numbers missed the forecast by a country mile.

They're tightening the belts so my entire team got jettisoned. And we were a pretty efficient team.

I certainly agree that layoffs don't mean a recession, but I don't see how you can argue they represent an increase in efficiency.

Hire team of 4 to do project. Agree to do it in 1 year. Fire two, expect project to be delivered in 1 year as agreed.

It's a joke but I have seen things too close to it in reality.

Yes, a number of companies with unsustainable business models experienced layoffs. And old guard tech companies are in a constant state of layoffs and hiring at the same time. Meanwhile, the vast majority of tech is hiring with a voracious appetite and the big players are expanding around the country/world. Will there be an inevitable downturn at some point? Absolutely, but this article is grasping at straws and provides zero insight into what is actually happening in the industry.

The first words of the article are "President Donald Trump".

The source is Salon.

That's all you need to know. The purpose of the article is clear.

I don't know why this is getting downvoted. U.S. politics have gotten so toxic that anytime someone's "team" is not in power, they're cheer-leading for a recession. Conservatives did this under Obama and now liberals are doing it under Trump. Pointing out this fact is germane to the discussion.

Why would tech layoffs cause a US-wide recession?

Well, tech is really well paid, and tech workers tend to spend a lot of money buying things. Considering consumer spending is almost 70% of US GDP, when people lose jobs (especially good high paying ones), other industries tend to suffer. This can start a downward spiral.

https://www.thebalance.com/consumer-spending-trends-and-curr...

Why did bad mortgages in Nevada lead to a global financial crisis and the bankrupting of Icelandic banks? Things are pretty interconnected these days.

It wasn't just bad mortgages in Nevada...

It was bad mortgages in [lyrics to Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere”]

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