“The Job Cuts That Are Coming
Are Going To Be Super Brutal”
by Michael Snyder
"A shockingly large wave of layoffs has already begun, and we are being warned that much larger layoffs are coming in the months ahead. That is very chilling to hear, because job cut announcements are already coming in so rapidly that I couldn’t possibly share them all with you. I wrote about some of the major layoffs that are happening just a few days ago, and now I have more to share. We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008, and many of you still have very painful memories of what the “Great Recession” was like. Unfortunately, America is now plunging into another severe economic downturn, and that means that there will be a tremendous amount of pain in the weeks and months to come.
Earlier today, I was stunned to learn that a new survey has found that 20 percent of business economists “expect employment at their company to fall in the coming months”…"A growing number of business economists expect companies to reduce their headcounts for the first time since the pandemic, a sign the job market is beginning to cool amid an increasingly dark economic outlook. That’s according to a new survey published on Monday by the National Association for Business Economics, which shows that about 20% of the group’s members expect employment at their company to fall in the coming months."
Is this survey representative of the U.S. economy as a whole? If it is, that is truly chilling. Can you imagine what our economy would look like if about one-fifth of all U.S. companies started suddenly letting workers go all at once? Hopefully that will not happen.
But it appears that the coming layoffs in the banking industry could be historic. In fact, one expert is publicly warning that “the job cuts that are coming are going to be super brutal”…"Banks are set to undertake the largest wave of job cuts in 15 years amid declining revenues. Industry watchers told the Financial Times (FT) the layoffs - expected to be in the tens of thousands - reverse a trend of widespread hiring and banks’ reticence to let go of workers during the pandemic. “The job cuts that are coming are going to be super brutal,” Lee Thacker, owner of financial services headhunting firm Silvermine Partners, told the FT in a Saturday (Jan. 21) report."
He didn’t just say that the job losses will be “brutal”. He said that they will be “super brutal”. Of course many would argue that the outlook for tech industry workers is even worse. At this point, “tens of thousands of employees” have already been laid off within just “the past few months”…
Big tech giants have laid off tens of thousands of employees over the past few months as recession fears, persistent inflation, and rising interest rates continue to weigh on earnings results. The likes of Google, Amazon, and Meta have let go of nearly 40,000 employees combined. But Gene Munster, managing partner at the tech-focused investment and venture capital firm Deepwater Asset Management (formerly Loup Ventures), believes the worst is yet to come. “There’s still another 15% to 20% of headcount reductions for these big tech companies in the next three to six months,” he told CNBC on Monday."
The startling layoffs that we just witnessed at Google made headlines all over the planet, because most of the experts didn’t see them coming. Sadly, many of those that were laid off didn’t see them coming either. Can you imagine giving 20 years of your life to Google and then getting suddenly laid off one day via email?…
"A software engineer described the way he found out Google was laying him off as a “slap in the face.” Jeremy Joslin, whose LinkedIn profile says he had worked at the tech giant since 2003, said Friday the company gave him the news over email. “It’s hard for me to believe that after 20 years at Google I unexpectedly find out about my last day via an email,” he tweeted. “What a slap in the face. I wish I could have said goodbye to everyone face to face.”
That is cold. But it appears that this is becoming something of a trend. In fact, Vox just laid off 7 percent of its workforce, and those that lost their jobs were “notified through email”…"Vox Media, the publisher of news websites such as Vox and The Verge, in addition to New York magazine, will lay off 7% of its workforce, chief executive Jim Bankoff said in a Friday morning memo to staff. Bankoff said the layoffs, which will result in about 130 people losing their roles, impacted multiple teams, including editorial. Those who had their jobs eliminated were notified through email, followed by a later meeting with a human resources officer who would discuss severance packages with them."
If you are in human resources and you are reading this, please don’t ever do something so cruel at your own company. It may be much easier to fire people by email, but it is simply the wrong thing to do.
On Monday we also learned that Spotify will be conducting mass layoffs…"Spotify has joined a slew of other tech giants in laying off employees. Monday’s announcement shared by CEO Daniel Ek said that impacted employees, about 6% across the company, will be notified Monday morning."
I suppose that they have to pay Joe Rogan somehow. But it always pains me when I hear of people losing good paying employment. Sadly, for many firms one wave of layoffs will not be enough. As we plunge into a very harsh economic environment, some companies will have to get out the axe again and again.
For example, just look at what the Winklevoss twins are doing. They just conducted their third round of layoffs within the last eight months…"Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini is slashing 10 percent of its staff – the third round of layoffs within just eight months. The announcement was made in an internal message on Monday by founders and identical twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, 41, The Information reported. The company also cut staff in July, according to TechCrunch, just a month after it laid off 10 percent in June." Instead of subjecting us to horrifying renditions of some of our most beloved classic songs, perhaps they should have spent more time trying to figure out how to keep their company afloat.
In any event, it turns out that the doe-eyed optimists were dead wrong and the economic realists were quite correct. The massive economic meltdown that we have been relentlessly warned about is happening. Hordes of American workers have already been laid off, and countless more will be laid off as 2023 rolls along. So you may want to try to butter up your boss while you still can, because otherwise you may be one of the people that gets “laid off by email” in the months ahead."
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