Comment Re:Except for not being true (Score 1) 271
Sure, there are large layoffs in the tech industry, but big layoffs are not a new thing.
Two of the largest layoffs in US history occurred in 1993. 60K employees at IBM and 50K employees at Sears/KMart.
Big layoffs are a result of other business conditions, including.
An actual need to cut expenses -- bloated, slow-moving companies find themselves in the condition of declining sales, and big losses.
Or cutting product lines because they only make a few percent in profit or a decent percentage profit but not enough revenue to make a dent in a goliath company's portfolio. This leaves gaps in the market which can be filled by small companies which is a good thing. If government weren't so entangled with the goliath companies, the corporate ecosystem would be much more weighted towards start-ups and we'd have a much more inventive and agile economy.
A desire to increase profit margins, often linked to increased stock prices -- CEO's can get lots of bonus compensation in this form
When SEC reporting rules punished companies with a business plan extending beyond 90 days "in order to prevent fraud", they allowed a kind of fraud where hiring, layoffs and inventive accounting are regularly used to game the 90 day reporting cycle.