The U.S. economy is booming. So why are tech companies laying off workers? (Gerrit De Vynck, Danielle Abril and Caroline O’Donovan, February 3, 2024, Washington Post)
The continued cuts come as companies are under pressure from investors to improve their bottom lines. Wall Street’s sell-off of tech stocks in 2022 pushed companies to win back investors by focusing on increasing profits, and firing some of the tens of thousands of workers hired to meet the pandemic boom in consumer tech spending. With many tech companies laying off workers, cutting employees no longer signaled weakness. Now, executives are looking for more places where they can squeeze more work out of fewer people.
“We’re going to continue to be careful on what we invest in, and we’re going to continue to invest in new things and new areas and things that resonate with customers. And where we can find efficiencies and do more with less, we’re going to do that as well,” Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said in response to a reporter’s question during a Thursday media earnings call.
“That is the way the American capitalist system works,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “It’s ruthless when it gets down to striving for profitability and creating wealth. It redirects resources very rapidly from one place to another.”
The liberation of wealth creation from labor is Man’s greatest achievement.