Walt Disney Co to begin second wave of layoffs, cutting several thousand jobs | Hacker News Reader

Walt Disney Co to begin second wave of layoffs, cutting several thousand jobs

reuters.com

50 pointsBender19 comments

I don't like that they basically treat employees as contractors - take on many employees when they need them to build something, then lay them off when the thing is built. This almost externalizes costs for companies, moving the risk away from them. This might be legal, but IMHO breaks a promise of "as employee, you earn less, but you lower your risk and the employer will do what they can to find a different role, as long as we stay profitable".

All the big tech companies are thus encouraging their employees to unionize through these actions, even though many of their employees don't like unions.

In some ways I feel like the trust between tech workers and companies started to break down when engineers for the past few years have been jumping ship every year or so to maximize TC.

Why were they jumping ship to maximize TC? Was it because raises are dead?

I think it's the opposite. People realized that they were getting 2-4% raises and would forever be below market compensation so they went through the crappy experience of interviewing to get their compensation back to.market.

If you do job x and your employer pays someone 20%-50% more to do the same job, what are your options?

That's a good point, however I've only seen few people jump jobs like that. HR or some such probably has a better view how widespread it is.

They wouldn't jump ship if you paid them what they were worth on the market. Or gave them the barest inkling that they were secure in their organization and not subject to arbitrary layoffs. Or if there were some sort of pension plan. Or if companies didn't keep foisting more and more insurance costs onto employees. Or if applying for a job didn't take 3-4 months and unemployment covered 100% during that transition period.

Job loyalty didn't just die, it was killed along with pensions and tenure. A lot of employees are applying to other jobs because, it takes so long to get through the application process, they can't rely on getting another job in time if they get laid off. Job hopping is the new job security. The fact that it is the only way to get a raise only accelerates it all.

A union would not be necessary if they already had any sort of corporate democracy. If such a thing does not exist the workers there will find other means to make their voices heard.

It bothers me so much with these big companies laying people off. When you have over $80 billion in yearly revenue, in Disney's case, it's just pathetic that you treat your people as your main cost and liability.

It's all relative. DIS has 200k+ employees. Thousands of employees could quite literally be less than 1% of their workforce.

Is it reasonable for a company to make a change that effects 0.5-1% of their workforce? I think yes. How about 2%? At what point do the lines get blurred in your judgment?

The problem with framing this as a threshold question is that it relies on Sorites Paradox to work. That invalidates it in my mind because it rules out 0, 100, and every number in between. There's no way to rationalize justification for a particular numerical threshold from non-numerical qualifiers.

As a person in modern society, I am personally pretty tired of being treated and thought of as a percentage. So I don't like to think of others as percentages.

Announcing layoffs can be good for employees. Let's say you're going to shut down some project-- something that every company must do, but big companies must do all of the time. If you do quietly without announcing any big shift, then the people affected must try to explain why they left to future employers. Now, at least, a future employer will say, "Oh yes, it was brutal at Disney back then."

It's better not to lose your job, but if the economics dictate that you must go, public "layoffs" have some advantages.

So the alternative is that you don’t lay people off - ever?

Employees are the main cost in many companies.

This is capitalism? It’s ok though because the wealth will trickle down.

In other forms there is less wealth altogether

I’ll believe it if we survive the AI ”arms race”.

Also clearly capitalism has made “some people” rich, not those mining cobalt for your Teslas though, they’re still ruined. Then there the anxiety around the fact that it wouldn’t be sustainable if we all lived like wealthy Americans. So it’s really a limited system.

These companies know that AI agents are coming at them hard and fast. I think this and other layoffs are happening now so they can cut down the numbers before the question becomes "Are you replacing them with AI?".

Which tracks with it not impacting "hourly frontline workers employed at the parks and resorts".

That’s interesting hadn’t thought of that.

I see. Micro dosing is showing its signs.

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