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Comment by iwonthecase | Hacker News Reader

The time series chart shows a pretty strong decrease in the number of layoffs the last month, which is something I've noticed on the opposite side, where I'm getting a lot more interviews recently. Might just be my imagination though.

Also I did some analysis on this dataset a few months ago, and it seems like layoffs tend to happen near the beginning of the month, but I'm not sure why that would be.

Also, as an aside, this doesn't cover all places and I'd guess smaller startups would be less likely to show up. My last place went from about 45 to 10 employees over the last year (layoffs, RTO bs, terminations for "performance," etc.) and isn't on this list, for example.

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>The time series chart shows a pretty strong decrease in the number of layoffs the last month

Do people remember how these companies were talking a year ago? Because I do.

Meanwhile, I just searched Google News for "[company] quarterly results" for the three companies with the highest layoff rounds and here were the headlines for the top result for each:

>Alphabet reports better-than-expected quarterly results driven by growth in cloud

>Amazon reports blowout profit, beats on sales and issues optimistic guidance

>Meta reports better-than-expected results and issues optimistic guidance for third quarter

It is almost like the "difficult economic environment" that was "forcing their hands" might not have been as real as they were claiming. I don't know if this was another example of active collusion among big tech companies, but it certainly seems like these layoffs were at least partially motivated by power starting to shift too much into the hands of labor for the liking of some of these companies.

I often hear the phrase "you can't drive by looking in the rear view mirror". In practice, though, most businesses actually do that.

A lot of the companies with layoffs had a "bad" quarter or so, but hiring continued during that bad quarter. So they correct for the past with layoffs, then resume hiring.

It makes perfect sense if you don't think about it.

If I've learned anything in the past decade it's that CEOs aren't any better at predicting the future than you or I.

In fact a lot of business strategy seems to be making 5 year plans from last quarters data and assuming last quarter will repeat for five years. Look at all the aggressive hiring. Look at all the aggressive layoffs.

And enforcing RTO

To be honest, I sometimes think they are worse at it than you and I would be.

I was truly shocked by how some companies behaved during and after the pandemic. I can understand why companies that struggled (like restaurants) had to lay employees off, but companies that received what was obviously going to be a temporary boost in revenue behaved as if this were the new normal, over-invested in growth, and then freaked out when customer demand returned to normal pre-pandemic levels.

I know that interest rate changes also played a big role here, but the interest rate changes were also extremely predictable. Interest rates were obviously going to be lowered during the pandemic to keep the economy chugging, and then they were obviously going to be raised later to compensate. This is how modern economies are managed. It's nothing new.

All the investment and VC capital floating around during the pandemic was obviously going to dry up, so why did all these companies decide it was a good idea to become reliant on it?

It's not like they don't have a history of colluding to keep power from employees.

It's very suspicious that this "time of cost cutting" just so happened to coincide with increased office spending.

To make things worse these companies are still doing layoffs in various hidden and underhanded ways. From what I figure they're doing "employee refreshes", i.e. getting rid of more experienced Covid hires with high salaries in favor of less experienced post-Covid hires with lower compensation.

For at least a few big companies, it's both big and scummy.

It's also very hard to figure out which companies expect a 15% discount compared to the same role a year or more ago.. This makes a market that is too annoying for the already employed that want to move laterally with no losses or upward with actual benefit.

Possibly that's a short time help to the unemployed, but it is a factor that could successfully lower the going wage.

The downtick in layoffs is perhaps that many experienced tech workers even if jobless can apply at much lower rates or just sit it out so its hard for management to understand which positions will cost them a pound of flesh to fill again even as they stare at the holes they already have.

If a company has a great quarter buy hired for a much greater quarter, there could still be problems. My understanding is that there was a bit of a hiring frenzy (everyone desperate to hire as many people as possible) that wasn’t really justified, and most of those companies still have more employees than they did two years ago (even ignoring hiring after layoffs).

I’m not sure if this accounts for the datasets you are referencing, but one reason for layoffs to cluster at the beginning of the month, in the US at least, is health insurance…

Typically if you are laid off, your health insurance coverage will run at least through the end of the current month as of your last day before COBRA would kick in. This isn’t a hard and fast rule necessarily, and some layoffs extend healthcare coverage longer anyways, but I know for a fact multiple layoffs I’ve been involved in over the years have timed for the first of the month for this reason.

I'd hold off coming to any conclusions on the numbers for a given month until at least after it has passed.

> I'm getting a lot more interviews recently.

Would these people immediately seek a new job, or would there be a lag between being laid off and seeking a new job, especially if you got a 6-12 month package. Wouldn't you want to take a few months off?

Not in the US where health insurance is tied to your job and career gaps are perceived as substantially negative.

what levels are you interviewing for? any suggestions?

I'm getting a lot more too. I'm applying for senior DS or a level lower mle positions and have gotten significantly more interviews in the last few weeks than the previous 2 months

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