The days of management taking responsibility for anything are over. See: not a single CEO stepping down for over hiring.
Wait, what? You think a CEO should step down because their management over-hired a relatively small proportion of employees and had to do some layoffs?
Frankly - People seem to be forgetting that until 2013, MS was still doing stack ranking and routinely letting go of the bottom 10% of their workforce (and they were hardly the only ones doing it...)
I don't see it as unusual AT ALL that these companies are doing a wave of cuts to headcounts after the large hiring sprees during covid. Especially as interest rates rise, so they're looking to lower debt burdens in the short term and pay off loans made at low interest rates instead of rolling into a higher interest loan in the new environment.
If anything... I'd expect the exact opposite - a CEO that fails to address cost centers as debt becomes more expensive is a liability, and someone the board might be looking to replace (ask to step down).
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Does that mean I'm not sympathetic to those who've lost jobs? Of course not.
But tech had to rev the engine pretty hard to handle the extra load during covid when everyone was indoors and doing things online, and now that demand has dropped. So they're letting off the gas pedal.
If folks don't like it - blame the game. Work to unionize. Work to incentivize co-ops and shared ownership. Work to increase taxation on these companies and their highest earners (which... if you're in the tech industry almost certainly includes YOU). Don't go work for giant tech conglomerates and then act surprised when they act like giant tech conglomerates...
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror"
If you make some idiotic financial decision near the bottom of the management tree, such as... over hiring, you'll likely lose your job or get demoted.
Do it as a CEO, and get a huge bonus.
Some things are cyclical and you need more people for some amount of time, and then you find you need less. It’s not always predictable/seasonal like farming or holiday rush.
Is it wrong for a company to respond to market effects? That there was a layoff isn’t necessarily a sign a company did anything wrong… I think how they actually do the layoff certainly can be done well or poorly.
I’ve forgotten which FAANG it is. But one of them still has more employees than last year even after layoffs. It’s offensive.
It was likely the right call to hire then, just like it might be the right call to reduce headcount now.
Maybe they should step down any time they fail to accurately predict the future?
The people laid off and the people not needed were a different set of people, at the time of the layoff.
The list of managers stating that "they were taking responsibility" and then immediately stepping down was always fairly short.