PayPal, HubSpot Announce Layoffs (forbes.com) 42
PayPal unveiled plans Tuesday to cut 2,000 employees, becoming the latest U.S. company to reduce its headcount, just hours after software company HubSpot announced it would lay off 500 positions in an effort to reduce costs as the company struggles from a "perfect storm" of inflation, tight customer budgets and "volatile foreign exchange." Forbes reports: In a statement on Tuesday, online payment company PayPal announced it would cut 7% of its global workforce (2,000 full-time positions) amid a "competitive landscape" and a "challenging macro-economic environment," CEO Dan Schulman said.
HubSpot, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based software company, said it would cut 7% of its workforce by the end of the first quarter of 2023 in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, as part of a restructuring plan, with CEO Yamini Rangan telling staff it follows a "downward trend" after the company "bloomed" in the Covid-19 pandemic, with HubSpot facing a "faster deceleration than we expected." Yesterday, Philips said it would cut 3,000 jobs worldwide in 2023 and 6,000 total by 2025 after announcing $1.7 billion in losses for 2022. Spotify, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and a slew of other tech companies announced layoffs in recent days/weeks as well.
Further reading: PagerDuty CEO Quotes MLK Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever
HubSpot, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based software company, said it would cut 7% of its workforce by the end of the first quarter of 2023 in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, as part of a restructuring plan, with CEO Yamini Rangan telling staff it follows a "downward trend" after the company "bloomed" in the Covid-19 pandemic, with HubSpot facing a "faster deceleration than we expected." Yesterday, Philips said it would cut 3,000 jobs worldwide in 2023 and 6,000 total by 2025 after announcing $1.7 billion in losses for 2022. Spotify, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and a slew of other tech companies announced layoffs in recent days/weeks as well.
Further reading: PagerDuty CEO Quotes MLK Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever
Sometimes that is what it takes ... (Score:1)
... to wake a population up.
It's the 1970s all over again ... but without the good music.
But you know what came after the 70s? That's right ... people had had enough.
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Re:Sometimes that is what it takes ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think tech layoffs have any deeper meaning in this case, it is simply a recession.
What recession? The markets had their best January in something like forever, the job market is still strong, unemployment is low, and prices are rising.
Unless you mean all these companies deliberately laying off people to a) pump up their earnings which have been declining and b) create the very recession they claim is on the horizon.
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Trump once said the housing downturn was a good thing for those who were able to increase their real estate holdings. He wasn't wrong (and you won't catch me saying that about the former president very often). One man's down market is a rich man's investment opportunity.
Of course, most of us are wage slaves and a market downturn just... sucks.
A recession means no economic growth (Score:2)
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Re:Sometimes that is what it takes ... (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe. I cancelled my PayPal last year after 15 years of use. I didn't realize that they can effectively fine you if you purchase or sell something that they don't like (to be determined by them at any point). Mind you, we're not talking about illegal activity or things that are against the law. What a joke.
Glad that blew up all over the internet and brought it to my attention. I was so clueless. There are alternatives now, so who needs them?
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It's the 1970s all over again ... but without the good music.
Thanks for reminding me yet again why I'm considered a Xennial. I grew up with 80s music and have nostalgic feelings for that decade, but everything about 70s pop culture just seemed bizarre. Like an entire generation was just trying too hard to distinguish themselves from prior ones. It was certainly unique, I'll give it that.
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I don't know about the seventies (Score:2)
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No. No Gov involvement
That was a Corp Overlord
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Facts Brother
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I was unaware the 1970s was dominated by sociopathic trust fund managers coordinating mass layofffs across the companies they invested in in order to drive down wages.
It was dominated by a belief that government could solve all problems, and the resulting high inflation and unemployment that came from that belief.
And oh yeah, and the constant obsession with race, the crazy affirmative action policies, etc.
And oh yeah, the permissiveness about crime, and the totally predictable resultant rise in crime.
And oh yeah, the weakness to foreign enemies, combined with the contradictory weird hubris about some foreign interventions.
No, nothing familiar in any of that, lol!
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That is far from the truth.
Even without considering that the early 1970s and late 1970s were quite different, it was more a belief that the government was causing problems, like, from the left's perspective, the Vietnam war and, from the right, debt and inflation.
Reaganomics came next. (Score:2)
"Fuck the poor" aka "Trickle Down". That's not a plus.
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But you know what came after the 70s?
AIDS?
B.S. (Score:1)
....as the company struggles from a "perfect storm" of inflation, tight customer budgets and "volatile foreign exchange."
Bullshit. None of those things forced you to hire thousands of people that you didn't actually need.
These companies have been playing the game of massive hiring for the sole purpose of appearing bigger and more successful than they really are. After all, the more people you have, the more successful you are. Right?
All of this unnecessary hiring and fake growth has been for the sole purpose of driving up the stock price for the benefit of the CEOs.
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It's not just that, it's also hiring talent to prevent your competitors from getting them.
Nothing at all to do with... (Score:5, Interesting)
...the large number of people who closed their accounts after the crap PayPal has done over the last few years.
Some of it was just purely dumb, like the "we can confiscate your funds if you piss us off" deal, and the various "we're not going to let this person do business through PayPal because we don't like their politics."
Not to mention, of course, the "we don't want to let you spend money on porn or guns" policies.
All they had to do was sit back, move some cash around, and take a few percent off the top. Oops.
Now, Elon Musk is making noises about starting up a new PayPal competitor that doesn't do all of those things...
Denial is not just a river in Africa (Score:2)
...the large number of people who closed their accounts after the crap PayPal has done over the last few years.
Well that didn't take long. I figured it was only a matter of time before this thread took the same turn as the Impossible Meat layoffs story [slashdot.org], and people start positing that perhaps the online funds transfer business is waning. Yep, everyone is moving back to writing checks and money orders and sending 'em via snail mail, that has to be it.
Or we're... say it with me now... going into a recession. Knew you could.
Re:Denial is not just a river in Africa (Score:4, Insightful)
...the large number of people who closed their accounts after the crap PayPal has done over the last few years.
Well that didn't take long. I figured it was only a matter of time before this thread took the same turn as the Impossible Meat layoffs story [slashdot.org], and people start positing that perhaps the online funds transfer business is waning. Yep, everyone is moving back to writing checks and money orders and sending 'em via snail mail, that has to be it.
Or we're... say it with me now... going into a recession. Knew you could.
So the thing about Paypal is they went from around 2000 employees a year to 7000 in two years during COVID.
Cutting 2000 people now is crazy... why.
https://www.macrotrends.net/st... [macrotrends.net]
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
And Hubwhatever, reading between the lines, same deal.
"as part of a restructuring plan, with CEO Yamini Rangan telling staff it follows a "downward trend" after the company "bloomed" in the Covid-19 pandemic"
During COVID, 2020-2021, the economy was really really great. Too great. Do you remember in the beginning when ceRtain people bitching about the economy and lockdowns started on about lazy workers staying home and how nobody can hire? How it was completely lost on them the implications of whining about too many open jobs, the economy expanding? Or how it was actually high demand that kind of disrupted a lot of supply chains? How about all the obvious signs of a _lot_ of dumb money everywhere. Retail trading was already growing fast, granted, but all that Robinhood drama, gamestonk, wallstreetbets, bitcoin, NFT, all the crypto. I mean I didn't get any stock tips from a shoeshine boy, but please tell me someone was paying attention, this was all on /. even.
Honestly, I believe we're coming down off that COVID high. Call it a recession if you like, but we're hung over, not dying.
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...the large number of people who closed their accounts after the crap PayPal has done over the last few years.
Well that didn't take long. I figured it was only a matter of time before this thread took the same turn as the Impossible Meat layoffs story [slashdot.org], and people start positing that perhaps the online funds transfer business is waning. Yep, everyone is moving back to writing checks and money orders and sending 'em via snail mail, that has to be it.
Or we're... say it with me now... going into a recession. Knew you could.
There are a large number of people here deeply invested in promoting the current Administration's Kevin Bacon impersonation: Remain Calm. All is Well!
They will insist, until they turn blue in the face, that any price hikes, layoffs, or corporate downsizing is due to Big This, or Big That. It's NEVER the case that things really do suck for most people in our terrific, fantastic, can't miss Biden economy. Anything to the contrary is Russian disinformation. Never mind your lying eyes when they see eggs at 6 bu
Re: Nothing at all to do with... (Score:3)
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...the large number of people who closed their accounts after the crap PayPal has done over the last few years.
Actually probably nothing to do with it at all. Paypal's crap has been an ongoing thing for nearly 2 decades now. Nothing significant has happened the past few years at all. In fact Paypal has grown and been on a steady upward trend the past decade with both record profits and record revenue, record transactions, and record money transferred in 2021 (I haven't seen 2022 numbers). And if their numbers are to be believed then they've increased user count by 25% in the past 2 years while also increasing the n
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It was eBay ditching them as the mandatory payment method that really screwed PayPal.
They are best avoided. Under UK law if you use PayPal then your transaction is with them, not the merchant. As a result you have far, far fewer rights than if you had paid the merchant directly.
People are shopping and spending. (Score:2)
Parking lots are full and stores are often crowded. There's still pent-up demand left over from the pandemic. I think a lot of this is me-too-ism among executives. If you do what all the other executives are doing and it turns out wrong, then your mistake doesn't stand out and most your competition has a similar blunder in their history.
But if you recommend against layoffs and the economy crashes, you look like a lone moron. There's safety in numbers: follow the lemmings.
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Consolidation Next (Score:2)
Regarding HubSpot, expect a whole bunch of consolidation and bankruptcy in the SaaS for CRMs, marketing automation, and collaboration software. There's a bubble of companies that have been coasting on VC money and a ton of them are about to go bust.
The "survivors" will likely be purchased away by Oracle, Salesforce, Microsoft, Intuit, and other big players that just want to eliminate competition.
Re: Consolidation Next (Score:2)
Paypal is in worse shape than you could imagine (Score:1)