Mass tech worker layoffs and the soft landing
Finally, the non-tech sector can hire technical workers.
Tomorrow (Mar 22), I’m doing a remote talk for the Institute for the Future’s “Changing the Register” series.
As tech giants reach terminal enshittification, hollowed out to the point where they are barely able to keep their end-users or business customers locked in, the capital classes are ready for the final rug-pull, where all the value is transfered from people who make things for a living to people who own things for a living.
“Activist investors” have triggered massive waves of tech layoffs, firing so many tech workers so quickly that it’s hard to even come up with an accurate count. The total is somewhere around 280,000 workers:
These layoffs have nothing to do with “trimming the fat” or correcting the hiring excesses of the lockdown. They’re a project to transfer value from workers, customers and users to shareholders. Google’s layoff of 12,000 workers followed fast on the heels of gargantuan stock buyback where the company pissed away enough money to pay those 12,000 salaries…for the next 27 years.
The equation is simple: the more companies invest in maintenance, research, development, moderation, anti-fraud, customer…
