Economic downturn and the influence of AI are claiming numerous jobs(peoplematters.in)
peoplematters.in
Economic downturn and the influence of AI are claiming numerous jobs
https://www.peoplematters.in/article/strategic-hr/the-biggest-layoffs-of-2023-amazon-to-microsoft-firms-fired-employees-in-jaw-dropping-numbers-39753
172 comments
> and they certainly weren't due to AI!
TFA has not a single shred of evidence to suggest any one of these have anything to do with AI. It just seems like poor journalism and/or clickbait.
TFA has not a single shred of evidence to suggest any one of these have anything to do with AI. It just seems like poor journalism and/or clickbait.
"But I think it is useful to put this in perspective as a phenomenon in a subsector of a subsector of the economy, rather than a trend in the economy as a whole."
Maybe also useful to ask, "Is there a connection between the economy as a whole and this subsector of a subsector?" If yes, what is it.
If the subsector of a subsector is in a downward spiral while the economy as whole is strong, what does that suggest.
It's not surprising that "famous tech companies" are "famous" given that they are in the practice of surveilling and intermediating communications between remote computer networks for a large segment of the population. The opportunities for self-promotion and/or manipulating the flow of information to prioritise their own interests are neverending.
Maybe also useful to ask, "Is there a connection between the economy as a whole and this subsector of a subsector?" If yes, what is it.
If the subsector of a subsector is in a downward spiral while the economy as whole is strong, what does that suggest.
It's not surprising that "famous tech companies" are "famous" given that they are in the practice of surveilling and intermediating communications between remote computer networks for a large segment of the population. The opportunities for self-promotion and/or manipulating the flow of information to prioritise their own interests are neverending.
Yeah it definitely is not surprising that this little niche punches above its weight in the public psyche. But it's good to try to remind oneself of the difference between perception and reality from time to time.
I agree those are useful questions. These are just, like, my opinion man, but here's what I think the answers are:
> "Is there a connection between the economy as a whole and this subsector of a subsector?"
No, I really don't think there is, more so than usual for its size. I do agree that it affects perception and sentiment a lot more than its size would suggest, but I don't think it has notably broad systemic ripples throughout the national economy. I think sectors like housing or trucking or energy and some subsectors of those do have these magnified effects throughout the economy, but I don't think this "famous tech company" subsector does.
I think it definitely does impact the SF bay area economy though, and the whole California economy to a lesser extent. But even those relatively big economies are small relative to the whole US economy.
> If the subsector of a subsector is in a downward spiral while the economy as whole is strong, what does that suggest.
I guess there are two questions here, the first being: Is the "famous tech companies" subsector in a downward spiral? I don't think it is. I think what we saw in "tech" from the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2023 was normal cyclicality, it was a moderate downturn that is already in the early stages of recovery. These cycles are happening constantly all across the economy. A healthy economy is not one where every sector is healthy, it is one where sectors are not all unhealthy simultaneously. It is expected and normal for some to be up while the others are down and then later for others to be up while those previously up are down. We were one of the down ones, and now we look poised to again be one of the up ones.
The second question is: Assuming "tech" is in a downward spiral, what does that suggest? Again, it is normal for once-leading sectors to no longer be so. What does it mean that the railroad sector is not dominant like it was at the end of the 19th century? It doesn't mean anything. What does it mean that phone companies aren't growing like they were in the middle of the 20th century? Not much. There will always be once-hot industries reaching a steady state and new industries, or new iterations of old industries, on the rise.
In my view this is all just: same as it ever was.
I agree those are useful questions. These are just, like, my opinion man, but here's what I think the answers are:
> "Is there a connection between the economy as a whole and this subsector of a subsector?"
No, I really don't think there is, more so than usual for its size. I do agree that it affects perception and sentiment a lot more than its size would suggest, but I don't think it has notably broad systemic ripples throughout the national economy. I think sectors like housing or trucking or energy and some subsectors of those do have these magnified effects throughout the economy, but I don't think this "famous tech company" subsector does.
I think it definitely does impact the SF bay area economy though, and the whole California economy to a lesser extent. But even those relatively big economies are small relative to the whole US economy.
> If the subsector of a subsector is in a downward spiral while the economy as whole is strong, what does that suggest.
I guess there are two questions here, the first being: Is the "famous tech companies" subsector in a downward spiral? I don't think it is. I think what we saw in "tech" from the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2023 was normal cyclicality, it was a moderate downturn that is already in the early stages of recovery. These cycles are happening constantly all across the economy. A healthy economy is not one where every sector is healthy, it is one where sectors are not all unhealthy simultaneously. It is expected and normal for some to be up while the others are down and then later for others to be up while those previously up are down. We were one of the down ones, and now we look poised to again be one of the up ones.
The second question is: Assuming "tech" is in a downward spiral, what does that suggest? Again, it is normal for once-leading sectors to no longer be so. What does it mean that the railroad sector is not dominant like it was at the end of the 19th century? It doesn't mean anything. What does it mean that phone companies aren't growing like they were in the middle of the 20th century? Not much. There will always be once-hot industries reaching a steady state and new industries, or new iterations of old industries, on the rise.
In my view this is all just: same as it ever was.
excellent work in locating these data points for the needed dose of cold water on the clickbait. Thanks.
Yes most of these layoffs are opportunistic and some are stock market based, but let’s not forget a couple years ago the hiring was too.
“Free” money on top of already very cheap money for +10 years and a couple of “new normals/this will never be the same” hype trends made a huge hiring frenzy possible.
Now with big boy borrow rates this is both unsustainable and a good opportunity for the C suites to “shine” and get paid.
“Free” money on top of already very cheap money for +10 years and a couple of “new normals/this will never be the same” hype trends made a huge hiring frenzy possible.
Now with big boy borrow rates this is both unsustainable and a good opportunity for the C suites to “shine” and get paid.
My problem with that is that the social contract is completely dead. It used to be that as long as the company was profitable, nobody would get fired. Now we have craziness like Microsoft or Google where they're basically laying people off because profit was 28% instead of 31% or revenue "only" grew by 12% instead of 20% for companies making hundreds of billions of dollars.
These companies could readily afford professional reconversions, on the job, for all the people laid off.
I understand underperformers, but this is not what's happening. A bean counter is chopping entire departments where the mistakes are made at director or VP level (who, by the way, frequently just get shuffled around) while the recently promoted top performer is just tossed away together with everyone else.
These companies could readily afford professional reconversions, on the job, for all the people laid off.
I understand underperformers, but this is not what's happening. A bean counter is chopping entire departments where the mistakes are made at director or VP level (who, by the way, frequently just get shuffled around) while the recently promoted top performer is just tossed away together with everyone else.
The problem is that nothing will change until professionals stop seeing themselves as temporarily embarrassed entrepreneurs and throw in with the burger-flippers, register-jockeys, warehouse minders, and gig runners. Not just on pay and job security; on training, on transit, on housing.
Sadly, the social contract has been dead long before, this is just one of those occasions where it undeniably shows.
The purpose of those companies is to maximize profits, not to employ people or to uphold a social contract.
The purpose of those companies is to maximize profits, not to employ people or to uphold a social contract.
To be more precise: The purpose is what the shareholders want which turns out to be profits above all else.
This has been going on for decades and it's now the integral part of what "being a manager is" as it's taught at schools.
Inside these big companies, the forever shuffles, hiring and "losing people" like you're in the war it's part of daily life.
It's disgusting from a human perspective, trust me I know, but I still hope this way of doing business is not the best and therefor these companies will rot from the inside and give way of better ones.
The problem is the time of a big company is on a different scale of the time of an individual.
Inside these big companies, the forever shuffles, hiring and "losing people" like you're in the war it's part of daily life.
It's disgusting from a human perspective, trust me I know, but I still hope this way of doing business is not the best and therefor these companies will rot from the inside and give way of better ones.
The problem is the time of a big company is on a different scale of the time of an individual.
> Inside these big companies, the forever shuffles, hiring and "losing people" like you're in the war it's part of daily life.
Astute and accurate observation. This is one of the reasons I strongly support unions (or a law that enforces a 2 months notice periods on the employer, no probation allowed).
Alternatively, interviews longer than 3 hours are no longer allowed so that people may switch jobs asap.
If we want flexible capitalism, we need to ensure that labor gets it's fair protections, just like corporations do.
Astute and accurate observation. This is one of the reasons I strongly support unions (or a law that enforces a 2 months notice periods on the employer, no probation allowed).
Alternatively, interviews longer than 3 hours are no longer allowed so that people may switch jobs asap.
If we want flexible capitalism, we need to ensure that labor gets it's fair protections, just like corporations do.
Modern management is to business relationships as pick-up artistry is to romantic relationships. It is manipulative and rapey. Perhaps this is how things have always been at the highest levels of sociopathy -- in the court of Versailles, or in bed with Henry VIII -- but it seems too broadly endemic today. When Gen Z shows up in the workplace with bravado and power-poses, it seems to me like fresh meat acting tough in hopes of surviving jail.
The basic stuff of life will be pushed out of societies who continue on this path, and their death-cultures will be able to persist only by using money to lure in (and haze) new generations of cultists, up through the Darien Gap. They will believe that they are rich, special, and superior, and they will convince new aspirants of the same, but their lives will be living sacrifices to Jeff Bezos and their grandchildren will never come into existence -- a subliminal acknowledgement that such lives do not feel worth living.
Bai lan.
The basic stuff of life will be pushed out of societies who continue on this path, and their death-cultures will be able to persist only by using money to lure in (and haze) new generations of cultists, up through the Darien Gap. They will believe that they are rich, special, and superior, and they will convince new aspirants of the same, but their lives will be living sacrifices to Jeff Bezos and their grandchildren will never come into existence -- a subliminal acknowledgement that such lives do not feel worth living.
Bai lan.
The cheap money thing doesn’t pass muster, Cisco had yearly layoffs for the past ~15 years even when interest rates were zero. Google was founded when rates were equivalent to what they are now, and as a high revenue company not even as sensitive to borrowing rates as startups and funds.
You’re repeating a cliche without thinking about it deeply.
You’re repeating a cliche without thinking about it deeply.
That was then, this is now. Huge amounts of recent tech hiring were driven by barrel-bottom interest rates and massive stock inflation as people everywhere hedged during covid. The hikes ended the gravy train to a limited degree.
Biggest surprise when reading the article: DocuSign has 7000 employees
Docusig can be used as a legal signing mechanism in nearly every country in the world, as well as supporting enterprise workflows . It doesn’t surprise me in the least that they have this many people, just the support team must be several thousands to deal with that many B2B contracts, and then the legal/compliance teams must be at least several hundred
DocuSign IS NOT A TECH COMPANY. DocuSign is a marketing and sales company.
Once you internalize this, their employee numbers make sense.
DocuSign makes their money by setting up the network effect of "DocuSign is the de facto standard so you, too, should sign up for DocuSign". This requires legions of salespeople to bribe the representatives of large businesses, governments (national, state, and local), legal associations, etc. to use DocuSign.
The fact that DocuSign has a tiny amount of extremely shitty tech to make stuff happen is irrelevant to their business structure.
Once you internalize this, their employee numbers make sense.
DocuSign makes their money by setting up the network effect of "DocuSign is the de facto standard so you, too, should sign up for DocuSign". This requires legions of salespeople to bribe the representatives of large businesses, governments (national, state, and local), legal associations, etc. to use DocuSign.
The fact that DocuSign has a tiny amount of extremely shitty tech to make stuff happen is irrelevant to their business structure.
We recently switched to DocuSign, not because of anything you list here but because our previous document signing system did not support the digital identification methods used in Japan and South America.
You may be right, but they certainly do a lot of legalese stuff on an international level to make sure their product can actually be used everywhere.
You may be right, but they certainly do a lot of legalese stuff on an international level to make sure their product can actually be used everywhere.
What other companies have the veneer of being a tech company but really aren’t?
WeWork comes to mind. Probably Tesla and most of the other electric car makers too.
The key differentiator between these and "true" tech is whether the business has:
- Very high margins. If WeWork wants to grow, they need more buildings and both renting and buying require large amounts of capital. Tesla requires a significant amount of raw materials to build a car. Google on the other hand spends almost nothing to add a new customer to the database. This lets Google grow to worldwide scale with (comparatively speaking) very low capital requirements, while the others need huge upfront investments.
- A sustainable technological advantage or network effect. WeWork is "just" the Regus business model with better branding. Tesla used to have some technological advantages but the other car manufacturers are catching up rapidly. This means that in the medium term their branding will be all they have left to distinguish themselves with, and public opinion is a fickle master. Google and Meta have really entrenched themselves in their respective markets and the network effect for both is so great that I cannot see them being dethroned anytime soon.
The key differentiator between these and "true" tech is whether the business has:
- Very high margins. If WeWork wants to grow, they need more buildings and both renting and buying require large amounts of capital. Tesla requires a significant amount of raw materials to build a car. Google on the other hand spends almost nothing to add a new customer to the database. This lets Google grow to worldwide scale with (comparatively speaking) very low capital requirements, while the others need huge upfront investments.
- A sustainable technological advantage or network effect. WeWork is "just" the Regus business model with better branding. Tesla used to have some technological advantages but the other car manufacturers are catching up rapidly. This means that in the medium term their branding will be all they have left to distinguish themselves with, and public opinion is a fickle master. Google and Meta have really entrenched themselves in their respective markets and the network effect for both is so great that I cannot see them being dethroned anytime soon.
Thank you. This is a good kind of “smell test”.
SAP Id say? They’re mainly business process consultants
Scratch the surface of a lot of companies and you’ll find that tech is a surprisingly small part of what goes on.
And that tech problems are an even smaller part of the important problems that the company needs to solve.
And that within those tech problems, human factors (getting people to agree, to do all the work rather than just the fun part, to deliver a sensible level of quality) dominate the problem, rather than actual tech issues.
And within THAT subset, some of those tech problems can be sidestepped by a bit of clever decision making.
And that within those tech problems, human factors (getting people to agree, to do all the work rather than just the fun part, to deliver a sensible level of quality) dominate the problem, rather than actual tech issues.
And within THAT subset, some of those tech problems can be sidestepped by a bit of clever decision making.
Oracle?
Edit: Whoops, just read the sibling comment. Apparently it wasn't just me.
Edit: Whoops, just read the sibling comment. Apparently it wasn't just me.
Oracle is certainly a software company. If they aren't a tech company, then Microsoft isn't either. Doesn't seem like a useful classification scheme.
In other words: the are the Oracle of document signing.
There must come some tipping point where DocuSign is so much the standard (like Microsoft Windows) that they no longer need ~7000 sales people.
There must come some tipping point where DocuSign is so much the standard (like Microsoft Windows) that they no longer need ~7000 sales people.
If that were true, Microsoft would not need a salesforce because Windows and Office are already so dominant. But MS has about 25k people in the marketing department so I don't think that the connection between dominance and not needing a sales dept is as clear as you suggest.
Isn't this really true for any company at scale?
Arguably every big tech company isn't a tech company at all. Most either fall into some combination of advertising, data brokers, etc. And at the end of the day, the real product of any publicly traded company is their stock - any tech product they happen to sell is a footnote compared to their share price.
Arguably every big tech company isn't a tech company at all. Most either fall into some combination of advertising, data brokers, etc. And at the end of the day, the real product of any publicly traded company is their stock - any tech product they happen to sell is a footnote compared to their share price.
How would that apply to Microsoft, Apple, nVidia, AMD, ASML, TSMC, ...?
I wouldn't everyone to agree, but I think there's a good argument to be made that all of those companies are more driven by the performance of their stock than anything else. They all make software or physical products, but at the end of the day the primary value of the companies and the impact they have on the economy are largely their stocks.
TSMC could be an outlier there, I don't know enough about the company's financials. The others, though, would fall into the category of companies valued and driven primarily by their stock valuations rather than the products they produce.
TSMC could be an outlier there, I don't know enough about the company's financials. The others, though, would fall into the category of companies valued and driven primarily by their stock valuations rather than the products they produce.
Personal anecdote time - A few years ago, I was hanging at a party in Dublin with some friends, when one of them was like "oh wait you're in tech? You should meet X he is in tech too!" and introduced me to X. X worked for DocuSign.
I spent the next 3 hours forcefully listening to a DocuSign sales pitch by that person, being followed to the bar and back with them talking to me about DocuSign, talking to other people with them standing next to us and intervening into conversation to talk about DocuSign. I tried all the tricks in the book to nicely ask that person to either leave me alone or at least not talk about DocuSign.
In the end, I just flat out told the person I'll probably never use DocuSign just because if their sales are that annoying now, I can only imagine how much worse they'll be after I give them my email. They got kind of insulted and left. Finally, I could breathe.
I'm not sure if I've ever met a more annoying salesman, and I've met a whole ton of them in my day. Can't say if it was due to their training or just personality, but from what I got they thought they are way more important in the "e-signature" game than they are. Like "billions of dollars of contracts would not happen if there was no docusign, we are the gears that make the world turn".
TLDR - They're a sales company trying to sell everyone their irrelevant piece of technology.
I spent the next 3 hours forcefully listening to a DocuSign sales pitch by that person, being followed to the bar and back with them talking to me about DocuSign, talking to other people with them standing next to us and intervening into conversation to talk about DocuSign. I tried all the tricks in the book to nicely ask that person to either leave me alone or at least not talk about DocuSign.
In the end, I just flat out told the person I'll probably never use DocuSign just because if their sales are that annoying now, I can only imagine how much worse they'll be after I give them my email. They got kind of insulted and left. Finally, I could breathe.
I'm not sure if I've ever met a more annoying salesman, and I've met a whole ton of them in my day. Can't say if it was due to their training or just personality, but from what I got they thought they are way more important in the "e-signature" game than they are. Like "billions of dollars of contracts would not happen if there was no docusign, we are the gears that make the world turn".
TLDR - They're a sales company trying to sell everyone their irrelevant piece of technology.
I would have liked if they'd given percentages as well as absolute numbers. A 33% layoff for a 15k size firm is more striking than a 5% layoff at a 100k size firm, though they are the same absolute number.
Is there some principle that if everyone has heard of a company and you don't feel you have to explain who they are then they are probably a minimum of X thousand people?
WhatsApp before acquisition had 55 employees and was well known.
In any online discussion of company sizes, someone must mention the furthest outlier in the history of business.
Instagram
Neither of those (Whatsapp, Instagram were profitable, far from it.
And most companies making billions need thousands of employees, especially software devs need to understand that.
And most companies making billions need thousands of employees, especially software devs need to understand that.
It's apples to oranges comparing different companies with different needs. Some companies may require more non-technical staff for things like legal compliance, or have complex technical requirements that are hidden beneath a simple UI.
Well while this number is not false, it's highly misleading as they had no intent of earning any profit.
And so they outsourced everything to others. Their 2013 expense is $148M for $10M of revenue[1]. They aren't spending $148M on 55 employees for sure. And that doesn't include server cost(which is likely very low due to optimizations).
[1]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114...
And so they outsourced everything to others. Their 2013 expense is $148M for $10M of revenue[1]. They aren't spending $148M on 55 employees for sure. And that doesn't include server cost(which is likely very low due to optimizations).
[1]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114...
Erlang
[deleted]
Was a good meme about this somewhere, how DocuSign was not automated at all and the 7000 employees was so they could scan everything physically.
Sir this is a base employment number for an American cookie cutter business corporation with executive board members flying circles in private jets between private islands.
Layoffs.fyi offers a more complete estimation, currently 1179 tech companies w/ layoffs, totaling 261847 employees laid off in 2023.
Curious, why are these numbers so different from the officially reported numbers?
Is Layoff.fyi re-categorizing some employees as tech, but official numbers have them as 'administrative', or some such thing.
“Widespread impact of AI” I know it’s helping people a lot already but is it actually causing layoffs?
My (uninformed) guess would be that approximately 0 of these layoffs we because of AI. If anything the recovery in tech stocks partly due to AI hype prevented a lot more layoffs at big tech companies.
Just talked with a friend from VMWare they are to be laid off soon after the acquisition. It went like this - they prohibited usage of chatgpt, but we continue to use it at my team - because the AI won't take my job, but the programmer using AI will do.
It is a tremendous force multiplier. It will take time to run trough organization - but if you are not the steamroller you will be the asphalt. And it will destroy a lot of the white collar bullshit jobs.
It is a tremendous force multiplier. It will take time to run trough organization - but if you are not the steamroller you will be the asphalt. And it will destroy a lot of the white collar bullshit jobs.
This is what it is: a massive force multiplier. It speeds things up like nothing before it. Cookie cutter code that you would have to otherwise write can be offloaded to AI flawlessly. Boring stuff like writing unit tests is easily AI’s domain.
Among small startups and entrepreneurs, it can also increase speed of execution. Instead of handing off instructions to a designer (IF you have one already - otherwise you have to find one) and waiting for the results, you can tinker around with prompts and get what you want within hours. More than the cost, it eliminates another source of friction.
Among small startups and entrepreneurs, it can also increase speed of execution. Instead of handing off instructions to a designer (IF you have one already - otherwise you have to find one) and waiting for the results, you can tinker around with prompts and get what you want within hours. More than the cost, it eliminates another source of friction.
> but the programmer using AI will do.
Where exactly will these magical programmers come from, if not the existing pool? That is the fundamental flaw with this argument - there are not tens of thousands of people with not enough skill to be currently employed, but enough skill to out-compete current programmers as long as they can use GenAI.
If these tools get orders of magnitude more powerful then maybe we can have a real discussion about the number of programming jobs diminishing, but that hasn't been the case yet.
The reality is that for a typical software developer, you're looking at a single digit increase in productivity if you use Copilot. ChatGPT provides even less productivity increase right now.
Where exactly will these magical programmers come from, if not the existing pool? That is the fundamental flaw with this argument - there are not tens of thousands of people with not enough skill to be currently employed, but enough skill to out-compete current programmers as long as they can use GenAI.
If these tools get orders of magnitude more powerful then maybe we can have a real discussion about the number of programming jobs diminishing, but that hasn't been the case yet.
The reality is that for a typical software developer, you're looking at a single digit increase in productivity if you use Copilot. ChatGPT provides even less productivity increase right now.
Sure , existing pool.
But if I and co pilot can do double the work per unit time compared to just me, suddenly the pool is twice as large as it needs to be.
Am I 2x productive? Depends on what I’m doing. But at almost no point since adopting copilot have I become 0 percent more productive so the pool is somewhere between 1 and 50 percent bigger than needed.
But if I and co pilot can do double the work per unit time compared to just me, suddenly the pool is twice as large as it needs to be.
Am I 2x productive? Depends on what I’m doing. But at almost no point since adopting copilot have I become 0 percent more productive so the pool is somewhere between 1 and 50 percent bigger than needed.
The U.S. tax base may implode if that is the case.
Not really. But it is trendy to assume so. In the real world ai is mostly used by inexperienced people that after a while realise it doesnt work as advertised and pester colleagues with annoying questions on how to fix its broken code.
I have to say that it's been bizarre watching people say how much of a "game changer" LLMs are. There is clearly an advance there, no doubt, but it hasn't really been able to solve any actual problems that I have.
They won't replace anyone yet, but you're sleeping on AI if you think it's not super helpful. For programming it has pretty much replaced Google for me, as I can ask very detailed questions that are specific to my code. Of course you should always double check the work, but it has definitely made me more productive.
I did have a bit longer comment typed out but didn't follow through on it. That is to say that yes, for common code (or as a developer told me, stuff you've written before and just can't be bothered to find again), it can knock stuff out in seconds that might take me a few hours, so in that sense it is very impressive. But that's just writing code that's been written many times already, and I'm not a developer anyway. I think it shows that in truth, few of the issues we solve are novel.
You're not supposed to ask it to implement something novel or large scale. You ask it how to use an api, or to refactor some code with a new class you made. You stack these up, and you can be way more productive than the person doing the equivalent of manual labor.
It's a free text box, you can ask it anything you want, but yes; the answers to large scale questions have been quite lacking in my experience. But as a systems guy rather than a developer, those tend to be the actual problems that I have.
Yeah the "check the work" thing is key. I think the reason these work so well as coding assistants is that we already have really mature tools for checking the work: compilers, static analyzers, test suites, etc.
It's not like writing a history paper where you can write "Napoleon was a French general who conquered Europe in 1987" and just be wrong in a way that requires cross-checking facts. Computers are less forgiving of things that are wrong.
But I do feel like I see incorrect documentation proliferating a bit more, and I'm curious whether we'll see an up-tick in more subtle bugs that is wrong but not so wrong that it is rejected early on. I haven't personally seen that in my work yet. I do also see more code that I don't like during code reviews, that I'm sure was spat out by an AI, but often I conclude that my preference isn't really "right" or even better, but just a preference that doesn't really matter.
It's not like writing a history paper where you can write "Napoleon was a French general who conquered Europe in 1987" and just be wrong in a way that requires cross-checking facts. Computers are less forgiving of things that are wrong.
But I do feel like I see incorrect documentation proliferating a bit more, and I'm curious whether we'll see an up-tick in more subtle bugs that is wrong but not so wrong that it is rejected early on. I haven't personally seen that in my work yet. I do also see more code that I don't like during code reviews, that I'm sure was spat out by an AI, but often I conclude that my preference isn't really "right" or even better, but just a preference that doesn't really matter.
There’s a lot of marketing around llms, with related spam everywhere. For a while i tried using chatgpt for instance as a replacement for google search, but it fails even at that. I do still use it for basic queries but can never be trusted to be reliable.
Same. Heck, I went to SO just to find an obscure piece of info that help me solve my issue and saved me 1 or 2 days of asking chatGPT the "right" question. ChatGPT is good but you need a "Jarvis" type AI to be Tony Stark and even then Tony must point it in the right direction.
It's a common argument here: "LLMs are overhyped, because they could not solve my super niche issue".
Their current status is basically "very junior programmer with a photographic memory, who has read a sizable chunk of the internet". They are excellent if you regularly need to implement code that has been done before.
Their current status is basically "very junior programmer with a photographic memory, who has read a sizable chunk of the internet". They are excellent if you regularly need to implement code that has been done before.
Well, given that a good chunk of the audience is treating LLMs as the next step in human intelligence, you tend to be very critical, trying to prove to the other side this is not what they're claiming to be.
Every now and then it's helpful! I hate how it tends to "guess" for me, though. And it's not hard questions, it's exactly the kind of boilerplate it's supposed to be good at. I'll ask things like how to connect to the Amazon API in Python for some quick boilerplate, or about a built in library in Python, and it'll just make stuff up. I often have to yell at it to not make stuff up 1 or 2 times before it gives me "real" code.
If I'm doing something obscure or niche forget it, it'll just make up a bunch of nonsense. But I wish it was easier to get it to say "I think it should work like x but I'm not sure about y part" instead of just going all in and making stuff up.
We need to train it on old LessWrong posts so it learns about degrees of belief and such lol
If I'm doing something obscure or niche forget it, it'll just make up a bunch of nonsense. But I wish it was easier to get it to say "I think it should work like x but I'm not sure about y part" instead of just going all in and making stuff up.
We need to train it on old LessWrong posts so it learns about degrees of belief and such lol
My local LLM's are usually instructed to minimize hallucinations. My ChatGPT account has a custom prompt to this effect as well.
It literally says "If you do not know something, just tell me, don't make something up".
Also, "Don't worry about me feeling insulted, no need to apologize for everything", which eliminates a lot of the groveling.
When dealing with niche topics it helps to literally copy-paste relevant chunks of the manual in. You can't expect it to know about everything (yet).
It literally says "If you do not know something, just tell me, don't make something up".
Also, "Don't worry about me feeling insulted, no need to apologize for everything", which eliminates a lot of the groveling.
When dealing with niche topics it helps to literally copy-paste relevant chunks of the manual in. You can't expect it to know about everything (yet).
Have you tried the paid version of ChatGPT? GPT 4 is way more capable than the free 3.5 version you get without paying.
I use it to work through architecture problems that are over my head or find answers to things that aren’t obvious in documentation. These are things I used to have to ask staff engineers for advice with. I’ve even had it write large sections of code for me. At this point most of the code it puts out works.
You can also do things like ask ChatGPT to use multiple specific technology stacks to implement your solution, which is really useful for when you’re trying to come up with a solution that fits within existing infrastructure.
It’s like a mega-brain that’s an expert in everything and understands your specific prompt without giving you the junk you don’t want that has similar words.
I use it to work through architecture problems that are over my head or find answers to things that aren’t obvious in documentation. These are things I used to have to ask staff engineers for advice with. I’ve even had it write large sections of code for me. At this point most of the code it puts out works.
You can also do things like ask ChatGPT to use multiple specific technology stacks to implement your solution, which is really useful for when you’re trying to come up with a solution that fits within existing infrastructure.
It’s like a mega-brain that’s an expert in everything and understands your specific prompt without giving you the junk you don’t want that has similar words.
I feel like it's a question of what "game changer" means. I find it incredibly useful! It helps me a lot in doing my job every day. I wouldn't personally say it has "changed the game" for me, but I think others might say that, just because the actions I take each day (my "game") is different now (has been "changed").
But the way those actions have changed just also isn't that big a deal. I have much better "intellisense" by using copilot, and I have much better stack overflow via interactive chat that will tell me answers immediately rather than linking to a kinda-sorta-the-same duplicate question after an hour. But using code completion and searching stack overflow weren't activities that took up much of my time. They took up some of my time, and it's really awesome that I'm using that time much more efficiently now, but it's still a small proportion.
I still spend most of my time reading code and docs, talking to my colleagues about things, and thinking about how to structure interfaces and larger components in order for them to be more useful and to evolve more easily as we hire more people and adapt to different business initiatives. The AI assistants help me some with these tasks, sometimes I ask them to summarize stuff I'm reading, or (honestly hardly ever) to help me understand unfamiliar code, but these are quite small value adds. They aren't anywhere near the point where they can replace my work on these tasks. They just can't store enough context on the business or do enough different kinds of things or take enough initiative to do this part of my work.
All of this is to say: I'm bullish on "LLMs as coding assistants" but - for the moment - remain bearish on "LLMs as replacement for a software engineer".
But the way those actions have changed just also isn't that big a deal. I have much better "intellisense" by using copilot, and I have much better stack overflow via interactive chat that will tell me answers immediately rather than linking to a kinda-sorta-the-same duplicate question after an hour. But using code completion and searching stack overflow weren't activities that took up much of my time. They took up some of my time, and it's really awesome that I'm using that time much more efficiently now, but it's still a small proportion.
I still spend most of my time reading code and docs, talking to my colleagues about things, and thinking about how to structure interfaces and larger components in order for them to be more useful and to evolve more easily as we hire more people and adapt to different business initiatives. The AI assistants help me some with these tasks, sometimes I ask them to summarize stuff I'm reading, or (honestly hardly ever) to help me understand unfamiliar code, but these are quite small value adds. They aren't anywhere near the point where they can replace my work on these tasks. They just can't store enough context on the business or do enough different kinds of things or take enough initiative to do this part of my work.
All of this is to say: I'm bullish on "LLMs as coding assistants" but - for the moment - remain bearish on "LLMs as replacement for a software engineer".
If your job gets replaced by an LLM, then you are probably not active on a level that has you reading Hacker News.
I'm sure more evolved LLMs will begin to replace jobs soon, but it will mostly be the low hanging fruit. By the time it gets to what I'm doing we'll be in Wall-E floating chair [1] ubi territory.
[1] https://youtu.be/s-kdRdzxdZQ
I'm sure more evolved LLMs will begin to replace jobs soon, but it will mostly be the low hanging fruit. By the time it gets to what I'm doing we'll be in Wall-E floating chair [1] ubi territory.
[1] https://youtu.be/s-kdRdzxdZQ
Your problems might be more complex, but it helped me, a noob programmer with 6 months of experience, launch a full fledged product that I now charge people real money for. Practically all the code was written by GPT-4.
Can this product scale to 10M users? No clue. Does it have all the features that I wanted? Not yet. But is it live, usable, useful and profitable?
Absolutely.
Can this product scale to 10M users? No clue. Does it have all the features that I wanted? Not yet. But is it live, usable, useful and profitable?
Absolutely.
Would be cool to detail what “full fledged product” chatgpt wrote for you. Usually these statements are vague and never reveal what exactly the product or code are, and when they aren’t it turns out that the author is not exactly a “noob” and the code wasn’t entirely written by chatgpt and is not more than the equivalent of a google search.
Hopefully you’re more sure about whether it’s secure or not.
All while actually useful AIs keep advancing, but nobody is paying attention.
E.g. I think not even Gartner is talking about automatic IT environment configuration and monitoring anymore.
E.g. I think not even Gartner is talking about automatic IT environment configuration and monitoring anymore.
> but it hasn't really been able to solve any actual problems that I have.
This is so foreign to me as someone who has become dependent on LLM's
This is so foreign to me as someone who has become dependent on LLM's
I have to assume they are simply misusing the tool (or work in a very specific niche that somehow doesn't benefit from it).
Does it solve problems for me? No, not really - but it's a huge productivity booster in helping me find solutions.
Does it solve problems for me? No, not really - but it's a huge productivity booster in helping me find solutions.
Most people who dismiss AI have simply used GPT-3.5 or some crappy model on huggingface and concluded that AI is useless.
Not my case though. Oddly enough i find 3.5 more accurate in some cases.
What LLM are you using? I use ChatGPT and StableDiffusion semiregularly. Maybe I just suck at prompts, I find them very hit and miss, even for very simple tasks.
AI is definitely having an impact anywhere there is graphic artist, banal marketing material. There are hundreds of types of jobs that need rather ordinary text, and they are all at risk. Amazon had to shut down self publishing already.
There was just a huge writers strike to combat this.
The problem seems to be that unless a company reports layoffs 'because of AI', then people think 'oh it wasn't because of AI'. It is definitely happening, but nobody actually doing layoffs is going to say that is the reason.
There was just a huge writers strike to combat this.
The problem seems to be that unless a company reports layoffs 'because of AI', then people think 'oh it wasn't because of AI'. It is definitely happening, but nobody actually doing layoffs is going to say that is the reason.
Layoffs might be premature but everyone's LinkedIn news feed says clearly that AI is taking over everything.
These are opportunity layoffs and everyone who says otherwise is delusional.
Yup, companies realized they could blame nonexistent “adverse macroeconomic conditions” to ditch a bunch of staff with zero bad PR and did it.
Is there a way to measure outsourcing in the tech industry??
I've been in tech a decade and noticed over the years more and more jobs being outsourced or replaced by immigrants to USA. Like many the job postings on adobe's website are for Bangalore for example which wasnt the case 10 years ago. LinkedIn is making a huge push towards Bangalore workforce as well.
Is there a way to quantify the transition away from American labor to foreign labor??
I've been in tech a decade and noticed over the years more and more jobs being outsourced or replaced by immigrants to USA. Like many the job postings on adobe's website are for Bangalore for example which wasnt the case 10 years ago. LinkedIn is making a huge push towards Bangalore workforce as well.
Is there a way to quantify the transition away from American labor to foreign labor??
There should be some kind of legal restrictions against opportunistically laying off thousands of staff for no good reason. Maybe something like, in order to do so, the entire C-suite would be legally required to resign.
No, there should be a job guarantee for anyone unable to find work in the private sector.
Asking for profit companies to ensure full employment is a dumb idea.
Asking for profit companies to keep people on for any other reason than profitability is a dumb idea.
Subsiding companies to keep the jobs is a dumb idea.
The only good idea is for the federal government to eliminate involuntary unemployment. The private sector can sort itself out.
Asking for profit companies to ensure full employment is a dumb idea.
Asking for profit companies to keep people on for any other reason than profitability is a dumb idea.
Subsiding companies to keep the jobs is a dumb idea.
The only good idea is for the federal government to eliminate involuntary unemployment. The private sector can sort itself out.
It's often cheaper to just give welfare than to make up work for people. Furthermore, an Amazon engineer isn't going to be any less stressed about his mortgage if you give him a street cleaning job.
If you really want to help people, we need to drastically bring down the cost of living in cities through building more housing, then provide some unemployment or ubi to keep you afloat with your savings while you look for something worthwhile to do.
If you really want to help people, we need to drastically bring down the cost of living in cities through building more housing, then provide some unemployment or ubi to keep you afloat with your savings while you look for something worthwhile to do.
> bring down the cost of living in cities through building more housing,
Housing is not ruled by the supply and demand wizardry. Housing is subject of infinite cash from fossil fuels, oligarchs, pension funds, dynastic family fortunes, and mortgage leverage by individuals already owning real estate. You build more, more will be purchased and the prices will still grow.
Housing is not ruled by the supply and demand wizardry. Housing is subject of infinite cash from fossil fuels, oligarchs, pension funds, dynastic family fortunes, and mortgage leverage by individuals already owning real estate. You build more, more will be purchased and the prices will still grow.
Do you have data for that?
Occupancy is at record highs in most US cities. It’s simply too little inventory, mostly due to local regulations and NIMBY’s. Most housing is owned by ppl, and a lot of the nation’s net worth is tied up in housing, disencentivising the lowering of house pricing.
You could see it duting covid in NY, people left and inventory went up. Rent and housing came down.
Same now in SF, ppl leave, inventory goes up, prices come down.
It’s not that complex really. Solving it will not be easy though.
Occupancy is at record highs in most US cities. It’s simply too little inventory, mostly due to local regulations and NIMBY’s. Most housing is owned by ppl, and a lot of the nation’s net worth is tied up in housing, disencentivising the lowering of house pricing.
You could see it duting covid in NY, people left and inventory went up. Rent and housing came down.
Same now in SF, ppl leave, inventory goes up, prices come down.
It’s not that complex really. Solving it will not be easy though.
No, pretty much every piece of all three sentences you write is completely, utterly, and without any reservation wrong. In fact they are so ridiculously wrong and go against every piece of actual data that has ever been produced by reputable sources that unless you actually show your cards (I know that some NIMBY groups have fake and/or misleading data, which we have seen and rebutted many times before, so I really do encourage you to try if you're serious) I have to assume you're just trolling.
We are absolutely talking about two different locations. I'm talking about Europe. Let me know once apartments in Zurich, Barcelona, Paris, Milan, or even Warsaw will submit to some market forces. I wish to be wrong, but once witnessing this enourmous stream of money one forfeits any doubts.
You are acting schizophrenic brother
Who pays for these job guarantees, and how do we ensure that there are meaningful jobs always available that fit both a persons skills and interests? Or are we assuming that anyone unable to find a job would jump at the chance to do whatever scrap job the government is willing to throw their way?
Markets are important in the system we've built, we can't just toss out market effects and assume nothing else will break. Whether markets are the "right" approach or the one that a majority of people still want is up for debate, but in the meantime much of our society is based on markets operating relatively freely as the approach of both understanding sentiment and allowing markets to shift without centralized control. Getting rid of the downside in our job market would almost certainly break the job market all together, as there are few downsides motivating people to try to find and keep a job.
Markets are important in the system we've built, we can't just toss out market effects and assume nothing else will break. Whether markets are the "right" approach or the one that a majority of people still want is up for debate, but in the meantime much of our society is based on markets operating relatively freely as the approach of both understanding sentiment and allowing markets to shift without centralized control. Getting rid of the downside in our job market would almost certainly break the job market all together, as there are few downsides motivating people to try to find and keep a job.
OP is not talking about subsiding companies but all of this looked like a coordinated, cartel like action.
Laissez fair capitalism never works.
I don’t understand this mindset. Looking at numbers in a vacuum.
The labor market is literal wage slavery, with slaves being rented instead of owned.
This attitude of everyone for themselves is literally what’s wrong with this modern, disgusting “individualist” pull yourself up by the bootstraps society.
I know the rules here are to be civil, but I really don’t understand this “f you I got mine” mentality.
I don’t understand this mindset. Looking at numbers in a vacuum.
The labor market is literal wage slavery, with slaves being rented instead of owned.
This attitude of everyone for themselves is literally what’s wrong with this modern, disgusting “individualist” pull yourself up by the bootstraps society.
I know the rules here are to be civil, but I really don’t understand this “f you I got mine” mentality.
> The labor market is literal wage slavery, with slaves being rented instead of owned.
And yet it's the best system we've devised so far. Maybe we should go back to the older systems where the only way to climb the social ladder was to go to war pillaging our neighbors and taking them as slaves
And yet it's the best system we've devised so far. Maybe we should go back to the older systems where the only way to climb the social ladder was to go to war pillaging our neighbors and taking them as slaves
> And yet it's the best system we've devised so far
This is the truth, and it's the saddest part of all...
This is the truth, and it's the saddest part of all...
It sounds like you're only seeing the extreme examples of the divide between individualism and communalism.
There are much more reasonable arguments made for individualism than "f you I got mine", just like there are more reasonable arguments for communalism than the ones posed by Stalin.
There are much more reasonable arguments made for individualism than "f you I got mine", just like there are more reasonable arguments for communalism than the ones posed by Stalin.
> No, there should be a job guarantee for anyone unable to find work in the private sector.
> The only good idea is for the federal government to eliminate involuntary unemployment. The private sector can sort itself out.
You are talking about mandatory work camps right?
> The only good idea is for the federal government to eliminate involuntary unemployment. The private sector can sort itself out.
You are talking about mandatory work camps right?
No
There are consequences for workers in such a setup as well - namely that companies are more hesitant to hire people if they're too hard to get rid of again.
Making it harder to fire makes it harder to hire.
Why do we need laws and law enforcement for this?
People don't have to work for a large corporation. If they are uncomfortable with the fact that their employment is at will and can be terminated for any reason, including as part of a mass layoff, work somewhere else or work for yourself.
If the company's board doesn't approve of mass layoffs, either don't approve them (if they have that power) or fire the C-suite after the fact.
We don't need laws, and therefore larger government control, to fix all our problems. Its concerning to me how frequently the initial reaction to situations like this is "the government should fix this."
People don't have to work for a large corporation. If they are uncomfortable with the fact that their employment is at will and can be terminated for any reason, including as part of a mass layoff, work somewhere else or work for yourself.
If the company's board doesn't approve of mass layoffs, either don't approve them (if they have that power) or fire the C-suite after the fact.
We don't need laws, and therefore larger government control, to fix all our problems. Its concerning to me how frequently the initial reaction to situations like this is "the government should fix this."
The biggest factor why Europe's tech salary is half to one third after accounting for cost of living is regulation. Even after someone works for one year of every one year laid off, the person will earn more in US.
The biggest companies here (e.g. SAP, Zalando, etc.) offer around 50-70 % of equivalent US salaries including stock options, from my experience, at least for the top people. Given that you have way more time off (usually at least 30 days plus 10-12 public holidays), very regulated work hours, great social security and healthcare and very affordable public services like Kindergartens, schools etc. I have to say it seems less and less attractive to move to the US, at last if you have family. As a 20-something year old single it's probably still a great opportunity though.
As a european this is simply not true. The number if well paying tech jobs in Europe is miniscule in Europe and they are usually region locked to few cities let alone countries.
US gives you freedom. Europe locks you to a country and culture you don’t necessarily want to live in.
US gives you freedom. Europe locks you to a country and culture you don’t necessarily want to live in.
>>Europe locks you to a country and culture you don’t necessarily want to live in.
I'm European and I don't feel that way at all - the very opposite in fact. Care to expand?
I'm European and I don't feel that way at all - the very opposite in fact. Care to expand?
If the big companies have offices in Amsterdam and you're not Dutch, you'll have to move there but basically never be considered a local, even if you learn Dutch.
....and? It's literally true everywhere in the world. I've moved abroad 13 years ago, obtained citizenship of another country, settled here, but I still wouldn't call myself local. Why is that a problem, and why is this in any way shape or form "limiting" in moving across Europe? The truth is you can move to any country any company incredibly easily with an EU citizenship, and yet OP finds it "locking" in some way, and I was curious what they mean, because in my opinion and in my experience it's the exact opposite.
We are comparing US single market vs EU single market. It's EXTREMELY difficult for people not in IT to move across Europe. Many of us have spouses or family in professions which cannot easily be done in different EU countries due to the language limitations. That can easily set you back years in your career or force you to learn a language YOU DO NOT WANT TO LEARN.
Another aspect is local culture. Europe is still INCREDIBLY centered around national cultures despite people trying to be more open. A lot of X-nationality are still acting according to stereotypes and it's incredibly hard to stay in such country longterm.
Part of being happy is to live in a welcoming, happy place not just money and amazing infrastructure.
Another aspect is local culture. Europe is still INCREDIBLY centered around national cultures despite people trying to be more open. A lot of X-nationality are still acting according to stereotypes and it's incredibly hard to stay in such country longterm.
Part of being happy is to live in a welcoming, happy place not just money and amazing infrastructure.
I have a life in country A (house, work, wife ..etc). My opportunities are limited to companies having LLC in my country or B2B contracts.
If I were to accept a job in country B I would (in 9/10 scenarios) need to move to that country and adjust to the local culture and language.
I had a friend with korean wife who was in Germany and then Belgium each for couple of years. The whole family was suffering from the constant need of adaptation to local languages and eventually they ended up going to Canada.
If I were to accept a job in country B I would (in 9/10 scenarios) need to move to that country and adjust to the local culture and language.
I had a friend with korean wife who was in Germany and then Belgium each for couple of years. The whole family was suffering from the constant need of adaptation to local languages and eventually they ended up going to Canada.
What European companies offer $200k+ salaries (which is about 60%-70% of a senior eng salary)?
PS - US developers get all of those benefits too, so you're just taking a pay cut for no reason. Not so attractive to me.
PS - US developers get all of those benefits too, so you're just taking a pay cut for no reason. Not so attractive to me.
See above, the biggest tech companies are competing for talent globally so they match offers with a discounting factor of 40-30 %, if you're a good candidate. Sure if the US is your thing I guess it makes sense to live there, for me quality of life in western Europe seems just way better, probably just because I'm used to the way things are here (walkable, safe cities, great public transportation, dozens of beautiful destinations within 4-8 hour driving or 2-3 hour flight duration, great food quality, ...). Also family ties and friends, seems not great to permanently move halfway across the world without good reason. I've spent significant time in the US and I enjoy it, just wouldn't want to live there permanently even if earning twice as much. Money isn't everything, at least for me. Everyone's different.
Sure if Europe is your thing, you should live there.
Just don't make specific claims which are not true. Europeans earn lower than 40% for the senior positions. e.g see google salaries[1]. Google pays good but is not the top of the league. Send me a page in Europe with 60% of those salaries.
[1]: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...
Just don't make specific claims which are not true. Europeans earn lower than 40% for the senior positions. e.g see google salaries[1]. Google pays good but is not the top of the league. Send me a page in Europe with 60% of those salaries.
[1]: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...
I know plenty of people that were recruited e.g. from AWS, Google etc. to come back to Europe, the big companies here don't match the salaries 100 % but 60-70 % is not unusual, otherwise it would be hard to convince people to come back.
Sure if you're a run-of-the-mill university graduate with no particularly valuable skill set you won't be able to pull that off, but if I remember correctly in the US it's also not guaranteed to get into these companies. So not sure what's not true, do you want to say you believe there's no single software development manager or principal engineer at SAP, BMW or Zalando that earns in the range of 200-250 T€ including stock options? People don't share their salaries here on US platforms as much as in there so the data in levels.fyi is not very useful, but there's e.g. DATEV which has more detailed salary data (as they provide the tax software for most companies) which you can get access to, that shows a strong bimodal distribution with "regular" salaries and salaries for "exceptional" employees.
Sure if you're a run-of-the-mill university graduate with no particularly valuable skill set you won't be able to pull that off, but if I remember correctly in the US it's also not guaranteed to get into these companies. So not sure what's not true, do you want to say you believe there's no single software development manager or principal engineer at SAP, BMW or Zalando that earns in the range of 200-250 T€ including stock options? People don't share their salaries here on US platforms as much as in there so the data in levels.fyi is not very useful, but there's e.g. DATEV which has more detailed salary data (as they provide the tax software for most companies) which you can get access to, that shows a strong bimodal distribution with "regular" salaries and salaries for "exceptional" employees.
> What European companies offer $200k+ salaries
erm... none? the "sky high" threshold in major EU cities is 100k EUR. Zalando and SAP mentioned by OP might pay above 100k but only in Munich or Frankfurt am Main.
erm... none? the "sky high" threshold in major EU cities is 100k EUR. Zalando and SAP mentioned by OP might pay above 100k but only in Munich or Frankfurt am Main.
Salaries or total compensation? As a senior SDE you can definitely make 150-180k TC in multiple European cities for FAANG, even outside of Switzerland.
There doesn't exist stock options or vesting share programs at companies listed on European stock exchanges. I gave up even asking at some point.
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They do pay above 100k€ in Berlin for talents.
Yes but then I would need to live in Berlin (shakes uncontrollably).
Must be surreal experience earning 100k EUR and living in aparthotel for years.
Berlin apartments are pretty high and large. The aparthotel experience with very high income is something I’ve seen in NYC, not really in Germany.
Edit: though I wouldn’t trade our current Hamburg flat, 2 floors, balcony, office room, for below 1300€/month, difficult to leave such a place!
Edit: though I wouldn’t trade our current Hamburg flat, 2 floors, balcony, office room, for below 1300€/month, difficult to leave such a place!
Yeah there is always this one smart person with very old rental contract. Let me quickly travel in time a grab something in Berlin for EUR 600. Good luck next time you'll end up scanning the apartment listings.
It’s not an old contract, only 2 years old at this point, it’s cheap thanks to a Genossenschaft. Buy yes we’ve been lucky, I would be glad to see more people benefiting from Genossenschaft, it’s a fantastic system.
Edit: I moved 5 times since 2015, across 3 countries, I know how horrible and difficult it is to find flats, even more in a place where you’re not speaking the language or know the culture. I never pretended it was simple. I’ve been refused flats for absurd reasons such as because of my foreign last name (like, explicitly), or because I was working remotely before it was considered acceptable.
Edit: I moved 5 times since 2015, across 3 countries, I know how horrible and difficult it is to find flats, even more in a place where you’re not speaking the language or know the culture. I never pretended it was simple. I’ve been refused flats for absurd reasons such as because of my foreign last name (like, explicitly), or because I was working remotely before it was considered acceptable.
Last time I was looking for a rental in Berlin the norm was to be ghosted after submitting paper portfolio with full professional, financial, and credit info.
Amazing that you see that as a feature and not a horrible bug that causes societal destabilization.
What is the justification for this claim beyond simply relying on "common sense"?
I just found Europe developers to be very good. So likely it's not a skills issue. But I could be wrong.
And for a job like software engineering, skills and regulation should be the only factor for salary of a team as outsourcing is done by everyone.
And for a job like software engineering, skills and regulation should be the only factor for salary of a team as outsourcing is done by everyone.
The workers in Europe can be fired with equal ease, even in countries like Germany. If the HR and management want one out, one is out. The labour code will only be followed if one is quick enough to hire a lawyer. Is is worth the massive paycut the Europeans are accepting?
It is factually true that a company can come to you and claim you are fired and have to leave, however it is illegal. One does not need to be quick with a lawyer. If you are a developer in Sweden, and you have joined the Swedish software engineering union, they will provide you legal support to ensure that you get what the law guarantees you. During the big layoffs this year, they actually waved any prereqs for how long you had to pay dues in the Union to get legal support. The layoffs in Sweden required the company to negotiate with employees for how much money they would accept to leave, in many cases this severance was full salary for a year. I live in Netherlands now and it's the same thing. Yes, a company will make it hard on you but they have no legal status here and will 100% lose going to court.
Yes, not everyone has the courage to stand up to their employer, and it may take some time for the legal process to work itself out, and it can be stressful. But the guarantees are there.
For myself, as an American who moved to Europe and has stayed, I found my quality of life much better. The reduction in pay has not bothered me one bit.
Yes, not everyone has the courage to stand up to their employer, and it may take some time for the legal process to work itself out, and it can be stressful. But the guarantees are there.
For myself, as an American who moved to Europe and has stayed, I found my quality of life much better. The reduction in pay has not bothered me one bit.
At least in the Netherlands it's extremely difficult to fire someone (which is a good thing). Unless they do something straight up illegal or are proven to be extremely incompetent, the only way to get rid of someone is to wait out their contract, assuming they don't have an unlimited contract. And if they're on the works council (mandatory in any company with at least 50 employees, with more seats the higher the number of employees), it's even more difficult to fire them without a very long, well-kept chain of proof for their incompetency.
The employer can always negotiate with the employee if they want them gone sooner, but that's still going to be expensive for the employer, and the worker in this case has much more robust rights than the employer. If my company wanted me gone I could easily get a year's salary out of it with any decent lawyer, as I have a permanent contract.
> If the HR and management want one out, one is out.
Definitely not in the Netherlands, and I expect most EU countries are similar.
> Is is worth the massive paycut the Europeans are accepting?
I don't earn anywhere near the 600k number that I see flying around in this thread and elsewhere on HN (which is lunacy to me but more power to you guys), but I'm still better off than 99% of people I meet, have my own home, have actual usable public transport and don't have to worry about a hospital visit bankrupting me. Oh, and my employer can't arbitrarily decide to just fire me, and if they do (for example in a wave of layoffs) I get compensated generously for it, plus the gov't itself will compensate me as well if I can't find a job for whatever reason while having 35 paid vacation days (I think the legal minimum is 25 vacation days for a fulltime employee, not 100% sure on that number though) + 10 or so public holidays. So, yes, definitely worth the pay cut.
There's more to life than gross monetary amounts, and from the horror stories my USA-ian friends relay to me about living there, I consider myself quite privileged to be where I'm at.
The employer can always negotiate with the employee if they want them gone sooner, but that's still going to be expensive for the employer, and the worker in this case has much more robust rights than the employer. If my company wanted me gone I could easily get a year's salary out of it with any decent lawyer, as I have a permanent contract.
> If the HR and management want one out, one is out.
Definitely not in the Netherlands, and I expect most EU countries are similar.
> Is is worth the massive paycut the Europeans are accepting?
I don't earn anywhere near the 600k number that I see flying around in this thread and elsewhere on HN (which is lunacy to me but more power to you guys), but I'm still better off than 99% of people I meet, have my own home, have actual usable public transport and don't have to worry about a hospital visit bankrupting me. Oh, and my employer can't arbitrarily decide to just fire me, and if they do (for example in a wave of layoffs) I get compensated generously for it, plus the gov't itself will compensate me as well if I can't find a job for whatever reason while having 35 paid vacation days (I think the legal minimum is 25 vacation days for a fulltime employee, not 100% sure on that number though) + 10 or so public holidays. So, yes, definitely worth the pay cut.
There's more to life than gross monetary amounts, and from the horror stories my USA-ian friends relay to me about living there, I consider myself quite privileged to be where I'm at.
> At least in the Netherlands it's extremely difficult to fire someone (which is a good thing).
In your experience, has this led to more careful hiring?
One big downside I've seen at some companies in the US is that its so easy to fire someone that companies can tend to hire whoever walks in the door. Especially at larger and publicly traded companies, it can often be more important to fill seats and show company growth when times are good and fire by the thousands at the first sign of any economic issues coming ahead.
I don't personally mind it being easy for a company to fire someone as long as that situation is clear before accepting a job, but it would be interesting if we have clear examples of better hiring practices when the employee can't be fired easily.
In your experience, has this led to more careful hiring?
One big downside I've seen at some companies in the US is that its so easy to fire someone that companies can tend to hire whoever walks in the door. Especially at larger and publicly traded companies, it can often be more important to fill seats and show company growth when times are good and fire by the thousands at the first sign of any economic issues coming ahead.
I don't personally mind it being easy for a company to fire someone as long as that situation is clear before accepting a job, but it would be interesting if we have clear examples of better hiring practices when the employee can't be fired easily.
> In your experience, has this led to more careful hiring?
Not in my (albeit limited) experience in the Netherlands. What I’ve seen it lead to is people hired initially into temporary one-year contracts, which are then converted to permanent contracts if things work out. I’ve definitely seen people be fired or otherwise pushed out even on permanent contracts. It’s not impossible, but as the above poster mentioned, it’s not easy either.
The quality of employees hired was certainly no better than at other companies I’ve worked for where firing was much easier. That’s with a sample size of 1 Dutch company though, and that company sucked, so it’s not a great dataset from which to draw conclusions.
Not in my (albeit limited) experience in the Netherlands. What I’ve seen it lead to is people hired initially into temporary one-year contracts, which are then converted to permanent contracts if things work out. I’ve definitely seen people be fired or otherwise pushed out even on permanent contracts. It’s not impossible, but as the above poster mentioned, it’s not easy either.
The quality of employees hired was certainly no better than at other companies I’ve worked for where firing was much easier. That’s with a sample size of 1 Dutch company though, and that company sucked, so it’s not a great dataset from which to draw conclusions.
Could explain what do you mean by better hiring practices. I think it is widely known that 4 rounds of interviews are not enough to judge someone, but it is not known if there exists a better practice apart from only hiring connections and time taking proctored take home project, which both have their fair share of problems.
That's actually what I'd be interested to learn. Presumably if a company can't fire someone easily they would have been motivated to find better predictors of future job success than a few short interviews.
Anecdotally I've seen companies skip even that process and hire anyone who seems even slightly qualified. The bar for "better hiring practices" is pretty low for me when the examples I've seen over 20 years in tech are either hire anyone to fill seats or throw obscure logic problems at candidates assuming that maps well to the role being hired for.
Anecdotally I've seen companies skip even that process and hire anyone who seems even slightly qualified. The bar for "better hiring practices" is pretty low for me when the examples I've seen over 20 years in tech are either hire anyone to fill seats or throw obscure logic problems at candidates assuming that maps well to the role being hired for.
Trial periods. In Luxembourg they're 6 months. You can be sent packing with 1-2 weeks notice, no questions asked.
Yep, sounds like that's way more common in Europe than the US. I'm actually at a small US company now that hires this way as well, I just hadn't seen any larger companies over here doing it this way.
> In your experience, has this led to more careful hiring?
I've never been at the helm for hiring decisions so couldn't tell you too much about the process itself, but we have a concept of a trial period here. The first month (or two, it varies by company but I think the maximum allowed is 3 months and most companies only go for the 1 month) of your employment, either party can part ways for any reason whatsoever at the end of the trial period. So if you're just not a good fit for whatever reason, the company can let you go when your trial period ends, no questions asked (assuming you weren't being treated unfairly of course).
At least anecdotally, everyone I've worked with that has passed the trial period at the 4 companies I've worked for in NL has been great to work alongside. People like to imagine a scenario where someone will bust their ass off for the trial period and then coast once they get through the trial period, but I've never experienced anyone doing it, I have however seen plenty of people dropped once the trial period ends.
Keep in mind that you can only get a permanent contract after 3 consecutive temporary (usually 1 year) contracts, so it's not like there's endless room for abuse by a bad employee either. If they're shit at the job within the first or second contract, the company just has to wait them out and not extend another one, and if someone's been fine for 3 years then it stands to reason that they should get a permanent contract that protects them extremely well.
Of course, if the company likes you they can offer you a permanent contract even sooner or even straight off the start, but I just mean that legally the company has 3 years worth of contracts to decide to keep you permanently or not.
It's probably a bit harder to get hired here (I don't really have that struggle but friends do complain about it), but once you do land somewhere then you can at least have the confidence that you won't arbitrarily be fucked over with no recompense due to things wholly outside your power.
I've never been at the helm for hiring decisions so couldn't tell you too much about the process itself, but we have a concept of a trial period here. The first month (or two, it varies by company but I think the maximum allowed is 3 months and most companies only go for the 1 month) of your employment, either party can part ways for any reason whatsoever at the end of the trial period. So if you're just not a good fit for whatever reason, the company can let you go when your trial period ends, no questions asked (assuming you weren't being treated unfairly of course).
At least anecdotally, everyone I've worked with that has passed the trial period at the 4 companies I've worked for in NL has been great to work alongside. People like to imagine a scenario where someone will bust their ass off for the trial period and then coast once they get through the trial period, but I've never experienced anyone doing it, I have however seen plenty of people dropped once the trial period ends.
Keep in mind that you can only get a permanent contract after 3 consecutive temporary (usually 1 year) contracts, so it's not like there's endless room for abuse by a bad employee either. If they're shit at the job within the first or second contract, the company just has to wait them out and not extend another one, and if someone's been fine for 3 years then it stands to reason that they should get a permanent contract that protects them extremely well.
Of course, if the company likes you they can offer you a permanent contract even sooner or even straight off the start, but I just mean that legally the company has 3 years worth of contracts to decide to keep you permanently or not.
It's probably a bit harder to get hired here (I don't really have that struggle but friends do complain about it), but once you do land somewhere then you can at least have the confidence that you won't arbitrarily be fucked over with no recompense due to things wholly outside your power.
Once you reach a certain size it's quite complicated to let people go, if you need to fire a large amount of people you need to e.g. work out a social plan, you can't fire performance-based unless people grossly neglect their job responsibilities. For smaller companies with less than a few hundred employees it's easier of course, but once you're in unionized territory firing becomes a process that the management needs to work out with the employee board.
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The more restrictions you put on firing people, the less likely employers are likely to hire, given the commitment.
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I’d just prefer that companies serve an array of purposes such that it is no longer exclusively about making shareholders as rich as possible. There has to be a better way. If all the actors in an economy act sociopathically, that economy itself is sociopathic. It’s generally seen that totalitarianism is an undesirable state for a government, so why do we accept it from companies?
Public goods should be provided by the public sector.
Because there is no such thing as a totalitarian company, apart from those owned and operated by the state.
So no more capitalism. Beware slippery slopes.
Nordic countries are very capitalistic and yet they have flexible social protections in place.
If anything, they're more free market oriented than the US, see Tesla versus IF Metall.
If anything, they're more free market oriented than the US, see Tesla versus IF Metall.
I kept on waiting for the article to discuss what the authors consider to be an economic downturn... but they never do.
How is unemployment so low then ? Most of these Anerican companies and layoffs happened in US too. Indian startups laying people off is due to less cheap money and faulty business models. Job growth in India is stunted due to economic mismanagement and the fact that the country doesn't do much manufacturing or isnt as important in the global supply chain. And the influence of AI doesnt show up anywhere. Overall a poorly written article.
Unemployment figures have been purged of many, many people that just gave up working in COVID.
And given the political importance of unemployment figures there is probably a great deal of additional manipulations the government does on them as it approaches election year.
And given the political importance of unemployment figures there is probably a great deal of additional manipulations the government does on them as it approaches election year.
The U6 unemployment rate that counts discouraged workers is way down from the peak of pandemic and back to previous values. All the unemployment numbers are at historically low values.
Large numbers of people who left workforce for pandemic have come back.
Large numbers of people who left workforce for pandemic have come back.
That is around 158,000. How many of them able to get new job ?
Capitalism works in dark ways sometimes. I believe these layoffs are almost entirely driven by the stock market.
In COVID times everybody had a hiring boom because it looked good to be hiring. So CEOs accelerated hiring, regardless of whether more manpower was actually needed. Now, it looks good to be laying people off in the name of "efficiency", so CEOs initiate layoffs to please the shareholders.
There is no actual logic here, whatever pumps the share price is the action taken because CEOs want a fat bonus. Most CEOs are parasites that do very little work other than warp the truth, lean into hypes, and make false promises. All while collecting a salary 100x the average worker's.
In COVID times everybody had a hiring boom because it looked good to be hiring. So CEOs accelerated hiring, regardless of whether more manpower was actually needed. Now, it looks good to be laying people off in the name of "efficiency", so CEOs initiate layoffs to please the shareholders.
There is no actual logic here, whatever pumps the share price is the action taken because CEOs want a fat bonus. Most CEOs are parasites that do very little work other than warp the truth, lean into hypes, and make false promises. All while collecting a salary 100x the average worker's.
You can take this a step further and pin it on market manipulations by the federal reserve rather than the stock market itself.
During the pandemic response trillions of dollars werr poured into the system, primarily by giving the new cash to banks at the top of the funnel. This money had to go somewhere and it was largely thrown at tech companies, seeing as they were more likely than other industries to continue to function when the government decided to shut down large portions of our society. Tech companies can only do so much with a huge influx in cash, hiring and stock buy backs are an easy way to burn through the cash and appear to be a healthy and growing company.
During the pandemic response trillions of dollars werr poured into the system, primarily by giving the new cash to banks at the top of the funnel. This money had to go somewhere and it was largely thrown at tech companies, seeing as they were more likely than other industries to continue to function when the government decided to shut down large portions of our society. Tech companies can only do so much with a huge influx in cash, hiring and stock buy backs are an easy way to burn through the cash and appear to be a healthy and growing company.
yes, companies buying their own stock with free money to inflate their share prices is the stage of post-value, growth capitalism we're in.
and people wonder why apple stock price is constantly so high even though they've been creatively stagnant for almost a decade.
and people wonder why apple stock price is constantly so high even though they've been creatively stagnant for almost a decade.
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And here it is for the "Information" subsector: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTU5100LDL. It's much more volatile, but there's a fairly consistent "normal range" between about 20k and 40k, with fairly frequent spikes down to 10k and up to 60k. You can see that the January spike was indeed pretty big (61k), but the rest of the year has been around that "normal range".
But there were spikes nearly as big in January 2018 and July 2019 and I don't recall those being particularly notable or commented upon, and they certainly weren't due to AI!
My impression is that even within this "Information" subsector, there is a much smaller subsector of "famous tech companies" (or maybe "silicon valley adjacent tech companies") where the layoffs this year really have been notably far above a baseline that has been very close to zero for a very long time. But this is just an impression, as far as I can tell there is no definition for this subsector of the Information subsector, and thus no data tracking it.
But I think it is useful to put this in perspective as a phenomenon in a subsector of a subsector of the economy, rather than a trend in the economy as a whole. I think if the story here were really "economic downturn and the influence of AI are claiming numerous jobs", it would be showing up much more broadly than this.