Re:Why “Copycat” Layoffs Won’t Help Tech Companies – Or Thei...
by sitkack on Sunday January 22, 2023 @05:03PM
(#34482711)
This.
Profit per employee is still high. Revenue per employee hired might be lower after the hiring spree, but the total revenue is still higher. Pay that back w/o culling the herd.
The other option is forming a coop like Igalia or moving to a democratically run organization. I say this not not to stoke a needless discussion, but corporations are fascist cabals. Employees are tools that are on the out-group and nothing more.
There's a third route: cut hours.
Everybody gets every other Friday off, and with that 10% reduction in hours, they get a 10% reduction in pay.
It doesn't solve everything, but reduces the feeling of unfairness because your per-hour rate stays the same. (Provided you cancel less-important projects, etc. so that people actually have less work, not just nominally.)
I think this approach is more common in cyclical industries like manufacturing. If you're probably going to need those people again, you want to keep them around. But if the goal is to reduce the company size, you could try combining it with attrition.