Brilliant
That will fix all those problems with compromised hosts and poor customer support.
DigitalOcean on Wednesday told staff it was laying off about 11 percent of them, or approximately 200 employees. A source within the cloud service provider told The Register about 100 employees were let go immediately and that the axe is hovering over another 100. Posts acknowledging the layoffs from some of those let go have …
compromised hosts and poor customer support.
Not necessarily. It is well known that in a typical office you have people with varying productivity. So if the layoffs went to the least productive, they'll be fine.
However, in a company that has WAY too many staff members, it's more likely to be arbitrary.
I'm definitely thinking about Elon Musk's recent dealing with Twitter. A whole lot of people were "deemed unnecessary" and from the look of things, that was mostly right. Also apparently gone at Twitter are those meditation rooms, wine dispensers, and free lunches. Yeah, that's where you trim the fat FIRST (not people)
In any case if the staff reductions at Digital Ocean were careful and smart, they'll be OK. [They should also do what they can to help find work for the unlucky ones, since it is in their own best interest as well]. But if they are arbitrary and driven hy anything OTHER than making the new office 'lean and mean', look forward to MORE OF SAME.
But I suspect 'not OK', and the main reason for revenue loss has been a general failure in marketing and forecasting. 2022 saw a HORRENDOUS amount of inflation, especially for the energy sector, interest rate hikes to "fix" it [but when inflation is caused by runaway gummint spending, it just stag-flates things], and apparently they are headquartered in New York City which is NOT helping. [NYC is an extremely expensive place to live and wages are artificially high, like San Francisco, Palo Alto, etc.]
In other words, if they had kept their eyes open they might have seen this coming. I actually expected the inflation etc. to happen as soon as oil prices began to rise due to 'new gummint policies' on U.S. domestic oil etc. because to ME it was obvious. But I digress. [hedging their bets or planning to move out of expensive areas might have been a way to avoid the layoffs]
And of course the ones who lose the most are the ones who were relying on them for a paycheck, and got sacked.
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US hiring and firing practices in the best and worst of times are literally the worst.
Grossly over-hire in the good times so you hammer your margins, then at the first sight of financial downturn make massive sweeping staffing cuts grossly overcompensating causing massive morale drops and general business malaise then when the economy picks up again you have to go on a hiring binge to play catch up. The worst of it is, it makes a downturn a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is why I'd never work for a US business.
Most of the world should have figured this all out after 2008 - the fact the US is considered an investment safe haven in times like this is objectively nuts.
Don't forget US management inflicting the same % cuts in salary or employment in offices elsewhere around the world as then not giving the go ahead to raise salaries or rehire afterwards when they do in the US.
Covid policy was another one, US management couldn't get their head around the fact that there were different waves happening in different places as they launched edicts and gave advice which conflicted with other countries'. Thankfully easier to completely ignore because not even HR could handwave their way around those laws as they often do with employment law.
As a contractor I am used to it. Basically it means adapting to the 'feast-or-famine' environment and always do your best to keep customers happy [then they keep giving you more projects].
Seriously,getting hired into a megacorp and staying there for 40+ years is highly overrated. "Job security" never really existed. The world changes too quickly, especially in IT and tech. Being flexible to 'hiring and layoff cycles' is just necessary for survival in the modern world.
"You're lucky to have a job with us" is what management at the vast American corporation I work for told one of our technical guys when he asked for a pay rise last year so he left.
It turns out his skills and experience can't be bought for any money in this particular market, so really, they were lucky he chose to work for them.
Management are telling the customers they are "going to the market" to replace him, but nobody believes them because the "market" consists of a couple of hundred people globally and they all know each other.
I'm left wondering if American corporations value labour at all.
It's almost like all those (former) tech employees should have, what's the word? You know, when you take on the billionaires and their worldwide power structures one at a time and on your own. Maybe not that. Something else? Oh well, too late. Not really crying for them mind you. Did you see the things they helped make?
So, they made nearly $100m profit (before tax) and they think that means they need to cut the workforce? Are companies cutting back on cloud hosting then?
I will never understand US companies. Cutting your workforce even though you're making huge profits seems like a great way to drive customers away, and make talent look elsewhere due to the perception of job insecurity.
"Consequently, the IT rental biz intends to prioritize global hiring in places like Pakistan and Mexico where relevant talent is available, and works for low wages compared to folks in some other nations."
So basically, push out the expensive European/US talent, wait 6 months, claim the business is back on track and hire cheaper sources of labour. Yep, it's business as usual, nothing to see folks, move along!