If you're one of the 16,000 Amazon employees getting laid off, read this

It's not your fault Amazon hired you for a position that it no longer deems necessary – blame bad planning or unanticipated market conditions. Everybody guesses wrong sometimes, even with the power of the most sophisticated business analysis software and the smartest prognosticators one can hire. It's not your fault if you …

[Aladdin Sane]

Universal Basic Income

Now

[Brl4n]

Re: Universal Basic Income

UBI would make everything, yes everything, magnitudes worse. I'd rather not live like a peasant from the 11th century but there are communities that you could join if you're into that kind of thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Universal Basic Income

Peasants only worked 150 days a year and we can't do UBI voluntarily because it needs to be supported by everyone to work

We live in a society, you cannot be selfish and morally justified

[ChoHag]

Re: Universal Basic Income

What makes you think I feel the need to morally justify myself, coward?

[doublelayer]

Re: Universal Basic Income

"Peasants only worked 150 days a year"

That is completely wrong. What that data you're summarizing actually says is that peasants had to work approximately 150 days a year to afford rent, and that specific number is called out as being in a time of notably high wages. What did they rent? Land, which they had to farm for the food they ate themselves as opposed to the food they farmed on those 150 days for others. We can do exactly the same calculation today. Take your annual cost of housing, divide it by your hourly wage rate. That's how much you have to work this year if you ignore the same things you're ignoring to use that incorrect argument.

If you have a point, making an incorrect claim to defend it doesn't help. Not that this claim would be a great defense even if it was true, because you probably can work 150 days a year if you're willing to live like a peasant would at that time, by which I mean poor-quality and small housing, no education for children, little access to luxuries, and relying on your community's willingness and ability to help you whenever something goes wrong. Then again, you probably have an opinion you're trying to express which is unrelated to historical personal economics, so maybe we should skip to that.

[werdsmith]

Re: Universal Basic Income

Peasants worked about 150 days a year on the manor in the service of the feudal Lord that they "owed" their existence to. They would work another 200 days to keep themselves and their families fed and the other family members including the small children would be working too.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Universal Basic Income

If only there had been productivity gains in agricultural technology and construction since the C12 - then we would be able to work 150 days/year and have a higher standard of living

[doublelayer]

Re: Universal Basic Income

I think you would. Budgeting this out depends on a lot of things like what work you're doing on the 150 days and where you're living, but I think there are many people who could live a much higher standard of living than a peasant while not working half the year. The problem is that we don't compare our standard of living to peasants from 900 years ago, so it wouldn't feel good. For example, you would probably still have and afford some indoor heating and hot water. Those feel like relatively basic things to us, though to a peasant, they wouldn't be. You would have access to a lot more quantity and variety of food, something peasants did not get. Even something as simple and cheap as a few light bulbs means a lot less time spent making candles, to say nothing of getting the stuff you need to make candles, to say nothing of the convenience of light at the touch of a switch, to say nothing of the significant reduction in the risk of fire. But until we think about that and compare them to a situation we've likely never had to experience for long, they're just light bulbs, beneath our notice and certainly no luxury since they're all over the place.

If we calculate it out, though, we're more likely to see and think about the list of things we either have or have a chance at getting which we would have to give up for the 22 weeks of holidays this gets us. That's logical because those are the two alternatives that are realistically available to us, but it means we underestimate how much a peasant would enjoy the basic standard of living we can obtain if they got time machined into it.

[BasicReality]

Re: Universal Basic Income

Never.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Universal Basic Income

Sadly a universal basic income sort of already exists.

How many workers out there actually do anything, and i mean anything ?

If aliens came today and took half the people in any country, nobody would notice.

In my local council there are 100s of people in an office, doing i have no idea what. The only true council workers are of cours ethe garbos and gardeners who take care of parks and stuff like that.

What do the others do ?

THe same is true of any company. Here in AU, every company even the mega big ones only have ONE phone number, some dont even have an email. You literally cant find anyone "inside" the comany for a question of complaint. I know this is by design, they just want you to give up anything, but my observation remains, what do these people do ?

The Comm Bank, massive bank one of the biggest in the world, has mega buildings everywhere "full" of people, what do they do ? No idea.

Same is true of everywhere you go.

These parasites is why everything is expensive and going up, because we are all paying for the do nothings.

[doublelayer]

Re: Universal Basic Income

Just because you don't know what someone is doing isn't sufficient evidence that they're doing nothing. Companies with only one public number might still have hundreds of customer service people behind that number, and even those companies who decide not to have one still have employees to do the things other than customer service.

As for what the people in the Commonwealth Bank buildings are doing, I can explain that. They are trying to take money and turn it into other money, even though none of it might be yours. For example, they operate private equity and commodities trading funds, both of which require a lot of people to do a lot of analysis to determine whether they think something will make money or not. You might not invest in either of those. I don't. Lots of people do, and even more large organizations do, and those investors are willing to pay for people to do that analysis if they trust them, and that's why there are people who work on financial services. You don't go into the buildings and talk to those people because they're not directly interacting with you, but if they disappeared tomorrow, you would notice eventually. Depending on your specific situation, you might notice in a variety of ways and not necessarily negatively, although there is a good chance it would be negatively.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Universal Basic Income

doublelayer Just because you don't know what someone is doing isn't sufficient evidence that they're doing nothing.

cow:

I shared the example of the local council in my area.

What are those 100s of staff in the building doing ?

If the council workers are not outside in the neighbour doing manual work as i shared previously.

WHy does a council with under 10000 residents need a building with a few hundred council office workers ?

What could they possibly be doing ?

Paying council rates is pretty basic, they have systems for that, they dont need 100s of staff for that.

~

double:

As for what the people in the Commonwealth Bank buildings are doing, I can explain that. They are trying to take money and turn it into other money, even though none of it might be yours.

Cow:

Wow like all arse hates you have to make a stupid comment about me even though you have no idea if i am rich or poor.

Goto any bank and watch how many staff are literally doing NOTHING.

They do stupid things like telling members of the public where to line up. A bank with less than 5 customers in store, does not need someone to tell them where to line up. Thats completely braindead and unnecessary.

[Ropewash]

Re: Universal Basic Income

I would suggest reading Parkinson's Law.

It explains the reasons for what you are seeing quite well.

[doublelayer]

Re: Universal Basic Income

You have comprehension issues. For example, when I said that "none of it [the money] might be yours", that was not an insinuation of your wealth. As I noted about myself, they have people working on investments I have none of my money in, so none of that money is mine because mine is in a different fund. Or, if you invested your money in another bank, then it also might not be yours unless those banks invest in each other. You interpreted that as something it wasn't, much like you are doing with the employees you don't bother to understand.

I don't know what everyone at your council are doing. You could find out if you wanted. The fact that you only consider the people doing physical labor which you can see indicates that listing the many tasks that some of those people are certainly doing is a waste of time since you already know enough to know that plenty of things are done by your council and they need people to implement those. There may be people who don't do much in that building, but you've made it clear that you have either no knowledge or no care for the many things that account for some or all of them.

[Tim99]

Re: Universal Basic Income

Bullshit Jobs?

Wikipedia: ’A Theory is a 2018 book by the American anthropologist David Graeber that postulates the existence of meaningless jobs and analyzes their societal harm. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless and becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth. Graeber describes five types of meaningless jobs, in which workers pretend their role is not as pointless or harmful as they know it to be: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters.’

[werdsmith]

Re: Universal Basic Income

I worked in places like that. Meeting after meeting of the same people sitting round talking about stuff, and very little else actually happening.

People that have known nothing else and they think that sitting in meetings all day is productive work.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Universal Basic Income

Precisely, this is a major component why the price of ev erything is going up. THe system is overloaded with people who contribute far less than the cost their position adds to the system.

In the end this cost makes their own and other parts of the system expensive. When you add up all that burden onto the system everything costs a lot more. THis is why food and housing as examples is becoming very expensive for nearly if not all western countries.

[MiguelC]

Amazon are absolute bastards - I would never work for them

A friend relocated to Czechia to work for them and 2 weeks into it they reneged on the contract offer... absolute bastards, as I said.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Amazon are absolute bastards - I would never work for them

A guy I worked with was a senior manager in Amazon for a few years. When he left he struggled in his new job because his default setting was "people don't count". Luckily they recognized his potential and gave him a mentor to help exorcise the Amazon Bastard that was embedded in him. He turned out OK.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: Amazon are absolute bastards - I would never work for them

I would have read that as:

[They] gave him a dementor to help exorcise the Amazon Bastard that was embedded in him.

When he left Bezostonia did he bring his coke bottle commode ?

[Homo.Sapien.Floridanus]

Re: Amazon are absolute bastards - I would never work for them

Were his initials BOFH?

[Tim99]

Re: Amazon are absolute bastards - I would never work for them

I ran a technical business for some bankers. I wanted to automate a piece of equipment to double throughput of one of our most profitable products. The cost was above my signing limit, so I approached my boss, the MD. The conversation went along these lines:-

MD: Put on a second shift... Me: I can't find enough good staff to fully cover one shift. If someone takes holiday or is sick, we struggle and don't make as much money. The new equipment gives us flexibility to cover that.

MD: What's the buy-back... Me: About three months; working flat out, it should last >6 years. The initial cost is about the same as one employee. After six months, it is free money.

MD: OK, go ahead, I'll keep an eye on the P/L; but remember we can always lay off staff, but not capital equipment... Me: (Thinks silently) - I *will* remember that.

---

When I was the MD in a successful business we set up, that might be why we said: "No employees, everyone is a Director; you get paid based on what you bring in, and we look after our own paperwork/admin".

[martinusher]

Re: Amazon are absolute bastards - I would never work for them

European sensibilities meets American business practice.

Working in the US has become increasingly risky over the years because of the steady reduction in workers' rights to the point where you basically don't have any. There are always exceptions to the rule, employers that are ethical and believe that people are actually people but by and large a worker in the US has about the status (and potentially less actual value) than a farm animal. Your worth is dependent solely on what you're producing for the company at this moment and failure to hit that productivity level marks you as redundant. In the past you at least had some respite due to the time it took to rank and rate you but now the real time metrics that the shop floor workforce has to live with is gradually diffusing upwards. (Mrs. Tweedy's egg production table marks the lowest producer for the pot...)

[Daniel M]

Re: Amazon are absolute bastards - I would never work for them

Your second sentence is dilatory.

Labor laws vary from state to state in the United States.

[martinusher]

Re: Amazon are absolute bastards - I would never work for them

I live in California where we're notorious for "excessive regulation of the workplace and giving the workforce too many rights". I've watched long serving colleagues be literally fired on the spot** because we, like every other state in the Union, is a 'right to work' state. The employer can also hang 'for cause' over you -- if you kick up a fuss then you'll not only lose what minimal benefits you might get such as keeping medial insurance for a short period and maybe some severance pay but you might be labeled as 'for cause' and so not be able to claim unemployment.

(Obviously you can contest this but that ol' financial clock is ticking....your first priority is to avoid losing everything.....)

(*"*Escorted out the building" fired on the spot. One was admittedly a bit annoying to work with but he had been working there for 17 years -- actually, come to think of it, being old is 'for cause'.)(Its not as if the company provides any retirement benefits -- we effectively ceased all that nonsense decades ago.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Amazon are absolute bastards - I would never work for them

> Labor laws vary from state to state in the United States.

In any significant ways? And when each set of laws is compared to those outside of the USA, such as within Europe?

[John Major]

Re: Amazon are absolute bastards - I would never work for them

Not a single downvote. All you need to know.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Amazon are absolute bastards - I would never work for them

But but isnt Amazon a part of your family ?

[Dinanziame]

An important lesson in life is that, even if your decision later turns out to have been the wrong one in hindsight, it doesn't mean it was the wrong decision at the time.

[MyffyW]

I left a well paid (but horrible) job for an opportunity that unwound after just 10 months. Pay took a bit of a hit for a year or two but absolutely no regrets and look back fondly on those 10 months + the subsequent gig I landed in a hurry.

I later left a lovely company that had nowhere for me to grow and leapt into another that had the right role. Loved it and though ultimately that ended in redundancy 5 years later, absolutely no regrets.

You've not got career experience until you're on the receiving end of redundancy. Be there for each other, wear your "Open to work" badge with pride and always, always play it forward.

[David Hicklin]

Especially when you can look back and realise that I would not be in this [very good] job if I had not taken "that" one way back, even though the firm went bust after 9 months !

[wolfetone]

If you're looking for work, make sure it does at least 2 of these 3 things:

1) Is the money good?

2) Is it good for your career?

3) Is it a laugh?

If it meets 2 of those, any 2, then go for it. If it doesn't, move on.

[computing]

I turned down an Amazon recruiter many years ago because they are a fail on #1 and 3. See also, the very funny, 'Stevey's Platform Rant' -- the section on Jeff wishing you a good day.

[Anonymous Coward]

At some point, likely later in life for many of us, you hope to have the good fortune to be able to ask "good *enough*" for those criteria. Particularly #1 and #2.

And maybe at that point, having #3 would be most valued. Would that we were all so lucky....

[elsergiovolador]

Corpo-ration

Corporations are not communities or families, no matter how many all-hands meetings insist otherwise. “Culture” is a retention tactic. The “mission” is a slide deck. The “values” are whatever happens to justify the next reorg. Loyalty is encouraged because it is cheap. Loyalty is never returned because it is expensive.

So workers should treat employment exactly as the company does: as a cost-benefit exercise. Do what is required to remain employed and nothing more. Do not donate effort, availability, or emotional energy. Do not compensate for understaffing, bad planning, or managerial incompetence with unpaid labour. If more output is needed, let it cost the organisation something.

This is not about slacking or playing games. It is about refusing to subsidise the business. You are not there to absorb risk, stress, or instability on the company’s behalf. You are there to exchange labour for money. That’s the entire deal.

Getting emotionally invested is not professionalism, it is exposure. The company spreads risk across headcount, markets, and balance sheets. You concentrate yours in a single employer that can erase your role with a form letter and a talking-points memo. That imbalance is not accidental.

After the layoff comes the real manipulation. You are told it is “not your fault” while everything around you implies it was. Friends ask what you missed. Recruiters talk about “fit.” Commentators reframe it as resilience or personal growth. Structural decisions are personalised. Responsibility flows downward. Accountability evaporates.

AI is just the current alibi. Before that it was offshoring. Before that, “synergy.” Same machine, new language.

Until workers stop mistaking corporations for moral actors and start treating them as extractive systems with good branding, this cycle will keep repeating.

[wolfetone]

Re: Corpo-ration

Have a pint of whatever you want for this. This is all work ever is. Labour, in exchange for money. It's also something that really ought to be given to every kid leaving school and drilled in to them.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Corpo-ration

Kids are seen as fodder for the machine. Keep that lip buttoned down, and in 20 years you too can be a supervisor of the new kids.

There are good employers out there. But it needs to be remembered that companies are there to make money. Employees are human tools.

[My other car WAS an IAV Stryker]

Re: Corpo-ration

"Employees are human tools."

And like all tools, the employer can properly care for their tools or abuse them. Abuse breaks tools faster than general wear-and-tear. Tools need maintenance; people need benefits, time off, and purpose to their work. Lack of any of these (and probably more) is abuse.

(The wear-and-tear just comes with age and experience in the corporate world; it's an unavoidable side effect of working for a living. But too much of that and the tool will get replaced, sorry.)

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Re: Corpo-ration

Like Louie Anderson said in Coming to America:

"In a year or two, I'll be assistant manager, and that's where the BIG BUCKS start rolling in!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEnp84dgNfs

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Corpo-ration

“Culture” is a retention tactic.

Hmmm.

The culture manglement try to promulgate may well be. Beside that there's inevitably a real work-place culture that, like all human cultures, is the product of the behaviour people who work there (including to a major extent the actual behaviour of the manglement). It might be benevolent, it might be toxic, it might be something in between.

[John Robson]

Re: Corpo-ration

"Loyalty is encouraged because it is cheap. Loyalty is never returned because it is expensive."

Some organisations do recognise that loyalty to existing employees is cheaper than training new employees. Of course that applies more if your position is harder to train for and/or requires specific experience etc.

Many do not however... and the P45 is probably the best gift they can give.

[demon driver]

Re: Corpo-ration

"Some organisations do recognise that loyalty to existing employees is cheaper than training new employees" – until, in the best case, the next "restructuring" or something will make keeping someone more expensive than laying them off.

[demon driver]

Word.

This is one of the best synopses of the essence of work and workplace as it pertains to the worker in the prevailing economic system that I've yet seen. Should be required by law to be printed, framed and hung on the wall in every office, cubicle cell or wherever someone works in dependent gainful employment.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: Corpo-ration & "values"

Understand the difference between "worth" and "value" then it becomes quite apparent most large enterprises are worthless irrespective of their purported valuations.

Corporations have no interest in increasing the worth of their services or of their employees; their only concern is to extract the maximum short term value from both.

Ultimately the worthless inevitably become valueless and is discarded. I am guessing the current AI Tulipmania might hasten this demise. I can only hope.

[Qwerty44]

Re: Corpo-ration

Exactly! Spot on!

We are rewatching in the morning Cloud 9 series for the second time. If you have a chance watch it, great fun and absorbs all that you explanied here and puts some fun around all stories ! ;)

[Missing Semicolon]

Re: Corpo-ration

When your employer goes on about "commitment". Don't forget - their commitment to you is 30 day's salary. That's it.

[ChoHag]

Re: Corpo-ration

> their commitment to you is 30 day's salary

I'm paid weekly.

[ecofeco]

Re: Corpo-ration

30 days? Look at you mister richie rich!

[coredump]

Re: Corpo-ration

Well said.

It's depressing to me that this kind of observation wasn't common years ago. It's somewhat encouraging to me that it has been more common in the last couple, at least.

I had stars in my eyes at the beginning of my first Real Job, and was certainly devoted to The Company for the first few years of my tenure there. Then, as often happens, things took bad turns (primarily due to the big bosses, but the reasons aren't important anymore), and equally inevitably, the rank and file paid the price -- with wave after wave of increasingly demoralizing layoffs.

It wasn't an overnight revelation to me, but after a year or more of near continuous layoffs, plus a corresponding number of folks leaving while the getting was good, walking friends out the door got to be "normal". Though I was never given walking papers myself, the proverbial scales fell from my eyes nonetheless.

My view since then about corporations might be called cynical. I rather think it's realistic, from experience.

[David Hicklin]

Re: Corpo-ration

> I had stars in my eyes at the beginning of my first Real Job, and was certainly devoted to The Company for the first few years of my tenure there

Yup right until the moment you experience a round of mass redundancies. At job #1 it for me it was seeing a friend sat just across the room from me sitting there realising that he was being made redundant that started it, then job #3 it was Black Tuesday - people being escorted off the site one by one. It went on all day and was a horrible experience.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: Corpo-ration

All that remains is for the workers to seize the means of production.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: Corpo-ration

Yes, we've seen how that always turns out. Usually ends in a dictatorship, and the abused are still abused but no longer have a choice about where they work. Well, they actually do - they work where the state tells them to work or the state sends them somewhere far, far worse.

[Doctor Syntax]

"If you believe the most foaming-mouthed AI prognosticators, the Dario Amodeis and Sam Altmans of the world"

And if you don't you can look forward to them getting theirs.

[coredump]

Problem is, they've already "got theirs". They just want more (all?) of "yours" too.

[AForumUser]

Thank you

Thanks for posting this article.

Having your role made redundant is a hard situation to end up in, but the article is sympathetically written and lands well to me as one of those who was affected by a reduction in workforce (although not from the employer in the article). It can be particularly hard to remember that it is your job that got made redundant - not you that was deemed redundant as a person. Rebuilding one's self-image is a long, hard struggle, and it's good to see it recognised.

It's good to see empathy in technical journalism, particularly in modern times.

Keep up the good work.

[Missing Semicolon]

Re: Thank you

"it is your job that got made redundant - not you"

Rubbish. Unless you are one of a small number of people doing "X", and now there is less "X" to do, this is not the case. You are being made "redundant" as your job still needs doing, but other people are cheaper/less awkward/less inclined to complain about lousy conditions (or. hey, AI might even be able to do your job, but that is only true if manglement don't care about the job being done). Unless the actual business is significantly shrinking, the work is still there - you were just the most fire-able. Too old, too professional, too expensive.

[Martin an gof]

Re: Thank you

In the UK at least there are legal requirements to be met for a "redundancy" which involve some kind of proof that the role is no longer required and ban on recruiting to the same (or very similar) role for a certain period of time, but in my own experience there are ways around that which can be used by employers to basically ignore the law.

The case of the P&O ferries "redundancies" a couple of years back is a high-profile example (the company initially claimed they were redundancies but later admitted it was fire-and-rehire), but my own story involved being made redundant and then finding out that about six weeks later they had employed a new person to do effectively exactly the same job but with a different title and one band lower on the pay scale. In the case of that company it would probably have been possible for someone to shop them for pay discrimination too as my replacement was a woman! Of course, nothing was actually done.

M.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Thank you

“If you're taking care of sick relatives, you'll all suffer under the sudden scramble to secure health insurance. But it's not your fault”

It’s not your fault if you live in the USA regarding Healthcare …(a *very* USA centred article).

…… but it is your fault for voting for Donald Trump or the Republican Party at any point in the last 50 years … as they helped create this sewer of low employment rights, most expensive healthcare/lack of universal healthcare society which is spinning out of control towards an oligarchy fueled banana republic.

I wonder how long before Trump reinstates the House Un-American Activities Committee.

[Anonymous Coward]

"It Is Not Your Fault"

J Edwards Deming had some good advice for EVERYONE:

- Blame is not a useful concept. Once you identify THE REASON for a failure, most people will have forgotten about blame.

I've been laid off twice. Both times the result was a better job.

Cynicism about my previous employer would not have helped me......nor did it!

Just saying!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cynicism about my previous employer would not have helped me

But hang on a second.

Amazon aren't losing money, we all know Jeff is one of the richest cunts in the world.

So no, it's not your fault, but pretending the system is working while a small group of greedy fucks pile up bigger piles of cash doesn't help you either.

If you don't even recognise that there is a problem then you cannot change it.

Capitalism is an ok system until people erect dams that stop the flow of capital. Then it stops being a functional system and starts to be abuse.

"We had to make a very difficult decision" means "I'm a greedy cunt and I don't care about you".

If you're still ordering stuff from Amazon because it's convenient, if you're still on X even though it's the Nazi bar, you are part of the problem.

[tiggity]

Re: Cynicism about my previous employer would not have helped me

Indeed.

I also read a lot of things online about various AWS issues, bad Amazon customer service etc..

So maybe, instead of layoffs, some of those people could have been moved to deal with some of the issues* that afflict the Bezos empire

* Though will not deal with the main issue of treating people as having no intrinsic worth and quality of life / work-life balance** is only for the lucky few

** we care for a relative (MIL) with various health & mobility issues, we do grocery shopping for her, but she does order some other stuff on Amazon (including stuff like chocolate which I assume she feels guilty about asking us to get when we do grocery shopping - but as part of our care duties we do all the bin emptying / recycling etc. then we are aware of those purchases as the packaging is not exactly invisible! - though we humour her & so don't let her know that we know).

..Which, by chatting to delivery drivers, is how I discovered the Amazon delivery drivers pissing in bottles was not an urban myth & drivers now know they only need to ask and they can use our bathroom when dropping off a delivery for MIL

[retiredFool]

Re: Cynicism about my previous employer would not have helped me

Unbridled capitalism which is pretty much what exists in the US today is the game of monopoly, just with millions of players. All but a few are bankrupt now and it is down to a few left playing. We all know how the game ends and it is not going to be pretty.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cynicism about my previous employer would not have helped me

How the game ends...

I'm pretty blessed but also hoping that I'm not -- to quote HHGTTG -- "first up against the wall when the revolution comes."

[seldom]

Re: Cynicism about my previous employer would not have helped me

I hope you are not posting that from Starmerstan. Threats of violence, incitement to terrorism and probably (in the future) retroactively quoting banned literature.

[Bebu sa Ware]

"Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?"

Never encountered that line (not my kind of music) but an interesting question.

What is worse than a lie ? A purposeful deceit ? A Faustian bargain ?

The most perilous and also the greatest deceiver is the dreamer himself which is likely the something much worse.

I find it difficult to credit that anyone with a modicum of sanity would dream of working for Amazon; only those resigned to a worse fate would accept an appointment in that dismal demesne — even clearing fatbergs in municipal sewers would be preferable (at least there you wouldn't require an empty coke bottle to take an on·the·job slash.)

[ChoHag]

Re: "Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?"

Clearing the sewers is a necessary function that's an overall good for society.

[Quando]

"If you're taking care of sick relatives, you'll all suffer under the sudden scramble to secure health insurance."

How is this a thing in what is supposed to be an advanced economy?

[coredump]

The supposedly advanced economy has chosen to "advance" some things, and a small select number of people, over others.

Which is to say, those with their hands on the levers of power tend to push-pull them to make sure it stays that way; devil take the rest of you lot.

[n2ubp]

Classified ads in the newspapers, at least in the USA, were/are extremely overpriced past the point usefulness. You pay by the word, bold words cost extra. Every little thing that might get attention costs extra. Greed killed off classifieds.

[An_Old_Dog]

Newspaper Classified-Ad Erosion

All you wrote about daily newspaper classified-ad price gouging is true, but the erosion of their clientele has been happening for a long time.

First, there was a local, printed-on-newsprint-paper weekly publication called "Nickle Ads". It contained nothing but ads: most classified, but not all. Many businesses bought full-, half-, or quarter-page ads. The ads were very cheap, and the printed copies were free for the taking. I have seen multiple similar publications in different locales.

When personal-computer-hosted electronic bulletin-board systems appeared, classified ads became effectively free.

The Internet expanded, BBS systems fell out of favor as neophiles pursued The Next Big Thing, and now Craigslist is making money by charging fees for ads.

Hmm ...

[GoneFission]

Thanks Matt for writing this. It's a really kind and empathic method of framing things. The entire labor industry in the US and UK has been set up in a way that puts an overwhelming burden (and needless blame) on job seekers for decisions that are not only out of their control, but take place on a plane completely removed from any daily work achievements, struggles or concerns.

But how else would you sell them counseling, resume tailoring services, AI job seeking solutions, out-of-pocket certs and self-improvement courses? And what approach is easier than blaming an individual, rather than having to reflect on the broken system they and yourself are subjected to? How many months or years do you see yourself being away from ending up in the same position?

[Daedalus]

AI is just a fashionable excuse.

The word from the inside is simple: offshoring.

[ComicalEngineer]

Re: AI is just a fashionable excuse.

A friends' son is one of the 16,000. He was one of the many agency staff employed at the Haydock (Merseyside) warehouse which distributes to other warehouses. He was given one week notice of job termination with no explanation. A number of other agency staff were also terminated at the same time, but, of course, being agency, you're expendable.

"Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, told staff in a blog post: “As I shared in October, we’ve been working to strengthen our organisation by reducing layers, increasing ownership and removing bureaucracy."

Rachel Fagan, organiser for the GMB union, said: “Amazon is showing itself for what it is – a company that cannot be trusted to do the right thing by working people in the UK. “Now is the time for decision makers to see Amazon for what it is, a company fixated on eye-watering profits at the expense of workers and local people.”

I wonder how a worker doing pick and pack at distribution centre is classified as a beaurocrat?

As for the wonderful title "senior vice president of people experience and technology" I would not work for any organisation that had that kind of job title for the manglement.

[coredump]

Re: AI is just a fashionable excuse.

> As for the wonderful title "senior vice president of people experience and technology"

Appalling, innit?

I mean, "HR" as a title may not have been fancy or flattering, but at least it was shorter, and implicitly accurate ("humans" are merely "resources").

But I suppose the big bosses don't want the rank and file to know how they really think of them. "Most valuable assets", perhaps, but with a watchful eye on the depreciation schedule....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: AI is just a fashionable excuse.

Anyone remember when HR was called Personnel?

[Winkypop]

Re: AI is just a fashionable excuse.

Yes

Up until there was a stink in personnel…

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope

No - HR was never Personnel. In fact the last time I called a Personnel person in my first employer I got an earful for accidentally referring to them as HR.

Personnel generally dealt with the people, and was (mostly) on the employee's side (even in the case of the aforesaid first employer, who tended to treat employees dreadfully). HR tends to be there more to protect the companies interests from its employees

[David Hicklin]

Re: Nope

> No - HR was never Personnel

At my first job in the late 1970's it was called the Personnel Department, so yes it was called that once upon a time.

[DS999]

Re: AI is just a fashionable excuse.

I imagine that "automation" rather than "AI" is the reason for layoffs in distribution centers, unless it is a matter of logistics - i.e. closing one to open another bigger one elsewhere (if order volumes are going up in a particular region) or closing down unneeded ones (if order volumes are going down in that region)

People picking up and boxing items is the low hanging fruit for robotics. Even Elon's overpromised pretendbots might be able to handle that one someday. In a decade there will be few humans working inside those cavernous Amazon warehouses, and the success of that doesn't depend on LLMs since it doesn't need much in the way of intelligence to complete those tasks.

[TVU]

"If you're one of the 16,000 Amazon employees getting laid off, read this. It's not your fault"

Amazon is one of the worst offenders when it comes to not dealing with staff humanely. Irrespective of what happens in the USA, governments in Europe and elsewhere ought to be tougher with Amazon's treatment of their own workers.

PS Don't be fooled by their BS adverts about staff development and holidays.

[Gene Cash]

Never forget

The most important product your company produces is your paycheck

[mickaroo]

Our employees are our most valuable asset!

Here, have a pink slip…

[Boris the Cockroach]

I've been through

redundacy 3 times.

First time the axe missed, our section made an eye watering amount of money and they were'nt going to let us go although that didnt stop the manglement from trying to screw us over, 30% of the workforce got the boot..... 6 weeks after that they realised they'd sacked a few too many......

Second time I got axed, along with some other temps (been there less than 2 yrs), had some money so survived and moved on to another job.

And then that company imploded 6 months later.

hello poverty (although not the poverty the US enjoys).

Its not nice when it happens and its very definetly not your fault, all you can do is sweat at some min wage craphole for a basic wage while aiming to start again.

[CowHorseFrog]

As time travels forward about I keep seeing more and more AI news and bullshit claims I cant help think this is a repeat of religion and the passion, suffering and horrible things that people in the west did to each other while pretending their God was the right one or better etc.

Unfortunately the people doing bad things still happens in the rest of the world, because some people tell bullshit stories, and those stories have to be better than the others. Back then they would start a war and cleans the unbelievers.

AI is the new God, they keep on forcing news and telling everyone how wonderful it is, but they never can actually show it - its always a let down. Reminds me of the bible for example where God is always so powerful on paper, but when it counts he is no where to be seen. God never saves Israel from the Greeks, Babylonians, Egyptians etc etc in real life.

Even in ElReg there are several stories where they "claim" in a post somehwere that AI did this in a few hours, but they never show you the code or put up an online demo.

No the bullshit never ends.

Just like the misery religion has caused, AI is run by the same types of psychopaths and this isnt going to end well. Just like the popes, preiests and whatever you want to call them, they always claim they are right and its for your own good.

In todays times where water is clearly a motivation for major news events, AI Is raping the world for resources that we as a living creature on earth cannot afford. Just ask Iran how well they are doing with water. Those idiots wasted their water growing and exporting some goods for a few dollars, and today they are on the edge of ruin. The money they earnt has lost a lot of its value because naturally their money is worth shit now. The result is they destroyed their land for money that is worth practically nothing.

This tells us the real value is not money but water, more wars are going to come because we waste resources we really need on bullshit like AI we dont.

Just watch Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq are all on the edge of running out of water or heading that way. Its not going to end well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Laid off during the GFC

This is just the next in a round of "adjustments" by a corporation that does not pay their managers to think past the next quarter.

I was laid off during the GFC as I was working at a broking firm that was dealing with electronic trading platforms, and clients not having spare cash to punt on the market. I was lucky, I jumped from the finance sector to the resources sector at just the right time and ended up adding a third more to my income.

[Anonymous Coward]

Never

Work for an American company.

Don’t care how desperate you are.

Or what country you live in.

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony...

That under Andy Jassy, Amazon introduced two new Leadership Principles, one of which is "Strive the be earth's best employer"

How's that going for you Andy? Still striving I guess? I have a few ideas that might help, which I can summarise as "do the opposite of what you are currently doing".

[DartfordMan]

Well, it could be your fault

I took a job a long time ago with a small company based on the statements of the MD - 'we'll be doubling the number of customers' etc etc. I realised after I joined that he genuinely believed what he said because he'd heard it from someone ... unfortunately that person was himself and he had no real plan apart from blind optimism. Perhaps I should have asked more questions.

Of course it doesn't mean all such issues are your fault. Years later I interview someone for a job. He sold up, moved up to our offices; and two weeks later a round of redundancies was announced (LIFO). I felt guilty, but I had been completely in the dark too. That was the fault of the directors not being able to see what was going to happen and stopping recruitment.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: Well, it could be your fault

Could be worse. A company I worked for many moons ago that was a WORLDwide teleCOM company had a surprise bankruptcy. The group I worked for at the time was canned, but I was transferred to a new position because I was one of the few whose performance reviews exceeded in all categories. I think 5 of us out of 60 stayed. The entire management team and the director were also let go.

Anyway, our managers had been hiring, and we were expecting half a dozen new employees who had been hired away from stable jobs showed up the week after just to fine nobody was expecting them and there were no jobs.

[Northern Lad]

Let Go...

Wasn't there an earlier article from The Reg that said that the reason for the redundancies was the need to remove bureaucracy.

Having been 'let go' twice in my IT career, and now a out of work 64 year old, would you mind if I shared my thoughts.

All rounds of redundancy, have to have a name doesn't have to be true, bureaucracy, restructuring, realignment (of the business), it doesn't matter, its a cutting costs exercise, its about money.

The people who are safest are usually the ones furthest up the company tree, and here is the conundrum, this is includes the same people who have previously introduced failed policies, working practices, etc that have led to need to 'let people go', surely these very people are the root cause of the issue, failed at their job and should be the first to go?

Common sense says Yes, One low grade manager may be worth 2 front line staff in terms of wages, middle grade manager, 3 or 4 front line staff, Director and above? 4 to 7 front line staff? It goes on.

I'd like to point out that at this time in the UK the vast amount IT jobs being advertised including 2nd 3rd line skills sets is £12.21 an hour.

So why is't the fat trimmed from bone further up the tree of success first, where the failing were created in first place? I've only seen it happen once in 30 years of being in IT. We all thought the IT dept would come to a stand still, but it didn't, somebody picked up the important parts of what they did and life continued.

I think the reason management are pretty much left out of the first few rounds of cuts is simple. Nobody really knows what they do on a day to day basis and nobody wants to ask too deeply because maybe a lot of them aren't as busy are they claim. So managers are always busy, busy, busy. So look further down tree at the less important people. People we can rehire in 6 months time, only cheaper.

[Green Nigel 42]

Well, I for One, Welcome Our New Neo-Colonial Overlords: Amazon’s Guide to Exploiting the UK"

Amazon’s layoffs expose the harsh truth: while thousands lose jobs, the company shields billions in profits through crafty tax dodges, exploiting UK and other countries respective infrastructures and workers alike. This isn’t just a corporate shake-up—it’s neo-colonial extraction dressed up as business as usual. The real victims? The communities and public services starved of fair contributions while Amazon rakes it in.

In short, for every Amazon bargain you buy, you sell another part of your rights and your respective country.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Actually, it is their fault

Coders had to write the AI that is now taking their jobs. The correct action was always to make it fail, and make it fail in a way that can't be fixed.

Unfortunately, there's always that ONE bunch of guys who envision being the ones who will make the Star Trek computer a reality and don't care if they are still employed after.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Actually, it is their fault

AI is a failure.

Take a look at Apple, their homekit is a joke, it gets the most basic of requests wrong. It is often broken, it cant handle two spoken requests without a big break between. YT and google is no different. I get adds for farming equipment and for all sorts of sprays. Google knows my IP and therefore my locataion, its pretty obvious I am not a massive farm who needs all that stu and sprays. Dont get me started on its suggestions for videos in other languaes with subtitles in other languages we clearly do not know here. No family understands 10+ random languages every few days.

[frankyunderwood123]

unless you have significant share options

… at a big corporate, just consider yourself nothing more than a hired hand and embrace that.

Ignore all of the corporate values and culture bull shit as much as possible, doing just the bare minimum of that to go unnoticed.

Take every opportunity to upskill , take every freebie you can, take advantage wherever you can.

In a good jobs market, assuming we ever see that again, change jobs every 2 years to increase your salary as being loyal won’t do that for you unless you are a ruthless ladder climber aiming for top management.

Never be loyal to a corporate entity. You can pretend to be if it benefits you, but know loyalty is a one way street in the corporate world.

[deadlockvictim]

Melania

The money saved from those 16,000 salaries should cover the expenses for the Melania movie nicely...