Despite Booming Economy And Record Profits Google, Amazon, Microsoft And More Lay Off Over 42,000 So Far In 2024

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 476 points – Despite Booming Economy And Record Profits Google, Amazon, Microsoft And More Lay Off Over 42,000 So Far In 2024
finance.yahoo.com

Despite Booming Economy And Record Profits Google, Amazon, Microsoft And More Lay Off Over 42,000 So Far In 2024::Despite a booming U.S. economy and significant advancements in the tech sector, including a robust performance by companies like Nvidia Corp. and a thriving artificial intelligence (AI) industry, tech companies have continued to lay off workers at an alarming rate in 2024. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index has shown an impressive uptick and the U.S. economy added 353,000 jobs in January, outpacing economists’ forecasts. However, this overall economic strength masks a wave of layoffs in the tech sector

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Whew! We dodged a bullet! Imagine what would have happened if we Raised Their Taxes or the Minimum Wage!

I think a big reason these companies are laying people off is because we actually did increase their taxes. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (Trump's only major legislation passed) changed the rules on R&D deductions after 2022 to balance the other cuts and allow Senate Republicans to pass the bill without a supermajority (through Reconciliation). This was meant to be a poison pill that everyone expected would get repealed before it went into effect, but efforts to repeal it fell apart.

Required R&D cost amortization

Under I.R.C. §174, a current deduction is allowed for research and experimental expenditures paid or incurred in tax years beginning before 2022. The TCJA amended I.R.C. §174 such that, beginning in 2022, firms that invest in R&D are no longer able to currently deduct their R&D expenses. Rather, they must amortize their costs over five years, starting with the midpoint of the taxable year in which the expense is paid or incurred. For costs attributable to research conducted outside the U.S., such costs must be amortized over 15 years. This will be the first time since 1954 that companies will have to amortize their R&D costs, rather than immediately deduct those expenses.

https://pro.bloombergtax.com/brief/rd-tax-credit-and-deducting-rd-expenditures/

https://youtu.be/1ecu0YsCGxg?si=zh-39-HMHif-zvaU

I think it's because they don't have interest free money anymore and a lot of expenses for the c-suite compensation

I sure am glad we get these large corporations so much in the way of legislation, relaxed regulation, and financial incentives. Surely these will guarantee loads of FUTURE hiring when it will all start trickling down.

Right? Right?

For trickle-down economics to work, there would need to be a tax structure in place that ratio'd your businesses net worth to your number of employees. And then have tiers. And at a certain tier, you're just 99% taxed. This way when the robots take over, it generates wealth for the masses instead of the few.

..until lobbyists play the "robots count as employees" card. Which inevitably leads to wealthy individuals propping up a robot to run for president. Which is how you get skynet.

Ok I'm gonna go make coffee.

Thank god we gave a massive corporate tax cut. This way they have more money to pay their employees

Don’t forget they pay little to no taxes and even some are getting money for negative tax. We pay something like 154 billion to those top companies, according to another article I read on Lemmy today.

I won't! And don't forget to vote with your dollars and buy local whenever possible. Local owners spend money in local towns.

They need to free up the cash to pay the CEO bonuses somehow.

Fucking seriously. My company (in the tech industry) has gone through a few rounds of layoffs recently. We keep hearing about how things are absolutely in the shitter and how we're all struggling to survive tough times.

Then they shared their financials last week and we had a 20% profit margin!! I was expecting a negative profit based on all the layoffs and doom and gloom. Wtf!

It's at the non-profits too. My work turned around suddenly in November claiming there was no money/funding for the work that had already been approved and highly praised. Gas lighting. Turning (or trying to) turn our colleagues against us. Yelling and crying (I kid you not, I was horrified at the time). Calling us disrespective and divisive (because we were trying to fix access/health and safety issues and had not only been given the go ahead, it was incorporated into our strategic plan in the summer and our boss repeatedly said that funding wasn't an issue at the time).

Cue 3 weeks later in our AGM, where the auditors come in to talk about the financials.

"We have to be careful not to give the illusion that we're hoarding money because we have so much in the bank".

All because my bosses feelings were fucking hurt and she's the definition of a fragile neo-liberal white lady who thinks she's a radical leftist.

(We've now been in mediation for three months, surpriiiiise, lol. And I have lawyers on hand in case they don't get their heads out of their asses, which seems more and more likely as time goes by becauze they broke labour law and my province's human rights code)

What‘s the point of not regulating them when they don‘t create new jobs? I mean putting congressmen self interest aside, they should be broken up. No point in keeping them together.

The US economy is booming?

In every way that matters to corps, yes.

For the rest of us who are getting laid off, not so much.

GDP is doing just fine, its just that there is a class warfare where wages are being suppressed significantly by corporations with State help and so most people are getting poorer as the wealthiest get richer faster than ever before.

Profitability is up, but that's partially because of the layoffs not despite them.

Now compare those numbers to how much they hired during Covid and it no longer looks that bleak.

They overhired like crazy, vacuuming up all the talent so smaller companies and competitors couldn't get any. Now the interest rates are up (no more 'free' money) and they have to cut the fat.

While you're not wrong, no company is calling it out like this. If I were to make a catastrophic hiring mistake, I'd probably be fired. The CEO's that looked at the pandemic, saw their profit rising, and decided "it's because we're so awesome, let's hire everyone" should bear the blame.

To take Amazon as an example, if you were to take how much they paid for MGM and on Rings of Power, Amazon could have paid salaries to everyone they let go for a full year. It's a dereliction of duty at leadership level, and the high stock price is the only reason they aren't out on the street.

Overhired and they were way to ambitious with their projections, so for the C Levels to unlock their full bonus they need to harvest skulls to meet their targets.

Because the economy is so great. /S. Please ignore the fact that we just went through nearly 20% inflation and that now, small and mid-sized banks will begin crashing like dominos, because of their exposure to commercial real estate, when everybody wants to work from home. Mild recessions are necessary. Not severe ones, for sure, but some is necessary.

And this can all be laid at the feet of the Federal Reserve, which is not Federal, and has no reserves, and counterfeits money with the blessing of the government.

Maybe it's due to over hiring, maybe due to the fact that some those people had jobs that were replaced by AI bots, it does not really matter, right now the market is fucked and good luck finding a job if you were laid off.