ok, many layoff numbers, but what about how many new roles have been filled or the total number of positions. As is, this is just a sensation piece for clicks, you will not learn much by reading this.
Money no longer being almost-free to borrow.
If anything, these massive companies will benefit when they can pick up struggling startups with great tech for a 1/1000th of their peak private valuation.
But, Microsoft, Meta, Google, etc. are not raising money on the open market; they have treasuries and revenue. I really think there's a lot of complexity going on here; interest rates going up didn't cut consumer spending by that much, so discretionary purchases didn't decrease, which meant that people were still buying ads and funding these companies. (I guess Microsoft doesn't make any money off of ads, but Google and Meta do.) I am guessing that people didn't expect the discretionary purchases to remain steady; in the past, interest rate increase = unemployment increase = nobody buying anything, but that appears to not be happening this time. Additionally, on the tech side of things, hype about AI is giving investors a serious fear of missing out, so there is definitely a bit of investment happening.
So all in all, I think these are very weird times, and it's hard for anyone to plan. You can guess, you can hope, but at the end of the day, we don't really know. We know what caused recessions in the past, but we don't know what the 10 year horizon looks like for "there is a deadly disease, everyone work from home and buy as much stuff from China as possible, oops they are all sick so only the highest bidder gets their thing, and oh btw you don't have to pay off your student loans anymore so bid away!" It made the $ worth a lot less. That's about it.
That is exactly what is going on. A lot of people don't understand that if your risky business can't make as much return as the "risk free return rate" (i.e. the rate of return on US Treasuries), the only logical thing to do (as a business owner) is close up shop, as all your hard work is earning LESS money than just dumping it in CDs.
When the risk-free rate was essentially zero, or in some cases negative, people would throw around money all over the place in hopes of getting some positive return. The bar has just been raised so that is no longer the case.
Sure, of course. There was also massive over-hiring during the pandemic in anticipation of some sort of "new normal" that didn't pan out.
My comment was more in response to the idea of "why should interest rates affect company hiring for companies that have a ton of cash on hand and are profitable?"
Witness: Walmart, Costco, Target and most of the retail sector. People have never stopped creating these low margin businesses.
You're not actually earning a return via US treasuries, you might get lucky and keep pace with inflation.
More broadly you've dropped the context, which is that the business in question can be growth positive even with high risk and tiny margins. US Treasuries are not growth positive, they don't grow and spit off new capital to reinvest into further expansion. Operating with a 2.3% operating income margin is a risky business, retail is extraordinarily difficult and is extraordinarily risky to start a business in due to the very low margins, and yet people will keep on doing it perpetually regardless of interest rates.
Earning a lower rate of return for eg five years on a business (vs treasuries), while re-investing into said business, can be the rational thing to do for a larger longer term payoff (which you'll never get out of treasuries). Your premise ignores pretty much all the very complex nuance to business. To say nothing of that the rational thing to do sometimes, is to do what you enjoy, which perhaps is operating a very low margin convenience store instead of sitting on a stack of treasuries. Businesses (more common in small to mid-size businesses) are frequently not run for maximum return, and that action can in fact be quite rational.
not at linkedin it ain't
Also as opposed to the idea that others in this thread seem to be suggesting that LinkedIn knows the future so is laying off to save costs in an anticipated tougher future, as opposed to looking at their recent history and laying off based on that to appease shareholders that they're taking corrective action.
Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that AI won't ever become a centrepiece of most companies, I'm simply saying that it isn't at this very moment yet. Half my digital agency clients haven't even heard of Copilot, let alone would they start building AI for their customers.
> He had a PhD in AI from MIT. Just to contextualize what that means in Silicon Valley, an MIT AI PhD can generally walk alone into an investor meeting wearing a coconut-shell bra, perform a series of improvised birdcalls, and walk out with $1 million.
If this piece is representative of the site, I would not use it for the basis of arguments
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/07/tech-jobs-are-still-the-most...
BLS jobs data is available to the public, go read it and you will confirm what I already told you
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
It also claims that IT job growth outpaces most other industries
Yes, it really is that bad. A couple of years ago my LinkedIn inbox was flooded with recruiters. Now it's a ghost town.
I'm considering pivoting into full-stack dev, but it's slow going. And even if that works, I'd be a junior developer. The situation is grim to say the least.