by Michael
We haven’t seen a tsunami of layoffs like this since the Great Recession. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of job cuts announced in January and February was 427 percent higher than during the same period in 2022. Unfortunately, the mass layoffs have just continued to roll on here in March. If corporate executives believed that economic conditions would soon improve, they would not be doing this. Sadly, they can see what the rest of us can see. Economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating, and at this point even some of the wealthiest and most prosperous firms in the entire nation are giving the axe to vast numbers of workers.
For example, Amazon just announced that another 9,000 workers will be terminated during their second round of mass layoffs…
Amazon on Monday announced plans to cut another 9,000 positions, its second round of mass layoffs in recent months.
The company will be targeting roles in its cloud computing unit, human resources division, advertising and Twitch, according to a letter to employees from CEO Andy Jassy.
Amazon is the number one online retailer in the United States.
If Amazon executives expected 2023 to be a vibrant year for the company they would not be getting rid of valuable employees.
Meanwhile, Facebook has just announced another five-digit round of layoffs…
Facebook parent company Meta earlier this month announced plans to lay off another 10,000 workers after cutting 11,000 employees in 2022, and Google in January said it would be eliminating roughly 12,000 jobs.
At one time Facebook was swimming in more cash than it knew what to do with.
But now Facebook executives are ruthlessly shedding bodies.
Another tech company that has already decided to implement a second round of layoffs is Waymo…
Alphabet’s Waymo has issued its second round of layoffs this year, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. Combined with the initial cuts in January, the self-driving technology company has let go of 8%, or 209 employees, of its workforce.
The layoffs — mostly engineering roles — are part of a broader organizational restructure that follows a “fiscally disciplined approach,” according to a Waymo spokesperson. In other words, the company is cutting costs where it can as it continues to develop and deploy its technology.
Sadly, this sort of thing is happening all over the tech industry right now.
Cross-border payments platform Chipper Cash is deeply slashing payroll less than three months after they conducted an initial round of very painful layoffs…
African cross-border payments platform Chipper Cash conducted a second round of layoffs last Friday just 10 weeks after it cut approximately 12.5% of its workforce (affecting its engineering team the most).
The company’s VP of revenue shared the news on LinkedIn, saying “all areas” across Chipper Cash’s markets were impacted this time. “Friday was a sad day for Chipper Cash, as many talented people were let go,” his post read. “For my network: there is an incredibly talented pool of individuals across the U.S., U.K., South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and more. They are all highly experienced in managing very complex, multicultural teams and projects in fintech. All areas have been impacted, from Recruiting, HR, Marketing, Pricing, Product, Analytics, UX, Research, Legal, and more.”
Overall, 503 tech companies have laid off a total of 148,165 employees so far in 2023.
But I don’t want to give you the impression that this is only happening in the tech industry.
For example, a major player in the pharmaceutical industry is also on their second round of layoffs…
Amgen Inc said on Thursday it would cut 450 jobs, or less than 2% of its workforce, making it the company’s second round of layoffs this year amid intensifying pressure on drug prices and high inflation.
“We made these changes to realign our expense base in the face of intensifying pressure on drug prices and high levels of inflation,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement to Reuters.
Close to two-thirds of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck, and so many of those that are losing jobs will quickly be unable to pay their bills if they are not able to secure new employment.
Just like during the Great Recession, we will likely see vast numbers of people lose their homes in the months and years ahead.
And that means that the ranks of the poor and homeless will soon be getting even larger.
That is really bad news, because our rapidly growing homelessness crisis is already making headlines all over the globe…
Shabby tent encampments erected in city parks, along streets and beneath overpasses. Homeless people, many with mental health or drug problems, sprawled across sidewalks or subway seats. Needles and other paraphernalia often nearby.
America’s homelessness scourge is huge and shows few signs of getting better.
California is by far the worst hit. It has about a third of all the country’s homeless people, and Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland, and other Golden State cities have among the largest numbers of unsheltered people in the country.
Things are particularly bad in Los Angeles.
It is being reported that more than 65,000 people currently sleep on the streets of L.A., and many of them are drug addicts that leave used needles and human excrement everywhere that they go…
Los Angeles city council member Joe Buscaino has complained that kids in his city have to ‘step over needles’ and ‘human waste’ on their way to school due because of those crashing out in residential areas.
‘No child in America should be afraid to walk to school, and what we have found in Los Angeles is kids are afraid to walk to school,’ the Democrat said in a television interview late last year.
‘They tell their parents they have to step over needles, human waste, and deal with individuals unfortunately suffering from psychotic behavior — right next to their playground area.’
This is our country now.
And conditions are only going to get even worse as time goes on.
If you currently have a job that you value, I would encourage you to cling to it with all your might.
And I would also encourage you to get prepared for the extremely rough economic conditions that are coming, because the years that are ahead of us will look completely different from the years that we have just been through.
Decades of very foolish decisions have brought us to this point, and now our society is going to reap exactly what it has sown.
