<story><title>Normalising Layoffs/Firing</title><text>I am seeing lots of posts on HN about layoffs. So and so company fired 1000 people, so and so company reduced it&amp;#x27;s workforce by 20%, etc.&lt;p&gt;We have normalised firing of people. I don&amp;#x27;t know about the &amp;quot;developed&amp;quot; countries where people have social security, but for countries like India where there is no social security and stigma is associated with being laid off, it is a very difficult situation.&lt;p&gt;I remember asking few years ago to my sister&amp;#x27;s husband, who runs our family business, what keeps him awake at night with regards to business. His answer, &amp;quot;Not messing up&amp;quot;. I was expecting something like &amp;quot;Funding&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Losing sales&amp;quot; etc. But hearing his answer surprised me. Because it sounded personal. So I asked him what does he mean? And he said, &amp;quot;The company has about 100 employees, but I am not just responsible for 100 employees. I am responsible for about 400 to 600 people. Each employee has a family. They make their future plans because they have an income from this company. They have to fund their kids education, they have to look after their aging parents, they might have taken a loan for daughter&amp;#x27;s marriage or for a house. They are relying on me. If I mess up, I affect lives of 400 to 600 people. That keeps me awake.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Some how firing&amp;#x2F;laying-off has been trivialised.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>Test0129</author><text>&amp;gt; We have normalised firing of people. I don&amp;#x27;t know about the &amp;quot;developed&amp;quot; countries where people have social security, but for countries like India where there is no social security and stigma is associated with being laid off, it is a very difficult situation.&lt;p&gt;Not to sound crass here but it seems like you&amp;#x27;re fishing for virtue. Hiring and firing are normal. A company of 20,000 firing 20% of it&amp;#x27;s workforce sounds major but that&amp;#x27;s the industry. It&amp;#x27;s normalized because &lt;i&gt;it is&lt;/i&gt; normal. The field of software engineering is so fungible 20% of employees losing their job is &lt;i&gt;nearly&lt;/i&gt; meaningless in the current job market because you can throw and rock and find another seat to warm &lt;i&gt;the next day&lt;/i&gt;. It&amp;#x27;s not like Ford closing a factory.&lt;p&gt;In other words, you need to relax and get out of your head a little. This industry is nothing like the factories. When 20% of factory workers lose their jobs everyone rightfully panics because it&amp;#x27;s not as easy to get another factory job (at least anymore...here in the west). 20% of tech employees getting laid off from a company is a nothingburger. 99% of these people will be able to take two weeks of free time and find another job for the same (or often better) pay. This is the definition of trivial.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cyrusshepard</author><text>Your comment seems to assume that 1) employment levels for software engineers is the same in India 2) that the OP has overstated the social stigma of layoffs in India, and finally 3) the current employment landscape that you find yourself in will last indefinitely.&lt;p&gt;Based on this, I suspect it&amp;#x27;s highly likely the hubris in this comment will not age well.</text></comment>
<story><title>Normalising Layoffs/Firing</title><text>I am seeing lots of posts on HN about layoffs. So and so company fired 1000 people, so and so company reduced it&amp;#x27;s workforce by 20%, etc.&lt;p&gt;We have normalised firing of people. I don&amp;#x27;t know about the &amp;quot;developed&amp;quot; countries where people have social security, but for countries like India where there is no social security and stigma is associated with being laid off, it is a very difficult situation.&lt;p&gt;I remember asking few years ago to my sister&amp;#x27;s husband, who runs our family business, what keeps him awake at night with regards to business. His answer, &amp;quot;Not messing up&amp;quot;. I was expecting something like &amp;quot;Funding&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Losing sales&amp;quot; etc. But hearing his answer surprised me. Because it sounded personal. So I asked him what does he mean? And he said, &amp;quot;The company has about 100 employees, but I am not just responsible for 100 employees. I am responsible for about 400 to 600 people. Each employee has a family. They make their future plans because they have an income from this company. They have to fund their kids education, they have to look after their aging parents, they might have taken a loan for daughter&amp;#x27;s marriage or for a house. They are relying on me. If I mess up, I affect lives of 400 to 600 people. That keeps me awake.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Some how firing&amp;#x2F;laying-off has been trivialised.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>Test0129</author><text>&amp;gt; We have normalised firing of people. I don&amp;#x27;t know about the &amp;quot;developed&amp;quot; countries where people have social security, but for countries like India where there is no social security and stigma is associated with being laid off, it is a very difficult situation.&lt;p&gt;Not to sound crass here but it seems like you&amp;#x27;re fishing for virtue. Hiring and firing are normal. A company of 20,000 firing 20% of it&amp;#x27;s workforce sounds major but that&amp;#x27;s the industry. It&amp;#x27;s normalized because &lt;i&gt;it is&lt;/i&gt; normal. The field of software engineering is so fungible 20% of employees losing their job is &lt;i&gt;nearly&lt;/i&gt; meaningless in the current job market because you can throw and rock and find another seat to warm &lt;i&gt;the next day&lt;/i&gt;. It&amp;#x27;s not like Ford closing a factory.&lt;p&gt;In other words, you need to relax and get out of your head a little. This industry is nothing like the factories. When 20% of factory workers lose their jobs everyone rightfully panics because it&amp;#x27;s not as easy to get another factory job (at least anymore...here in the west). 20% of tech employees getting laid off from a company is a nothingburger. 99% of these people will be able to take two weeks of free time and find another job for the same (or often better) pay. This is the definition of trivial.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>listenallyall</author><text>I was with you for a while, as I do believe that no job ought to be considered permanent nor anyone in tech should ever be completely caught off-guard by large layoffs or even more personal firing&amp;#x2F;replacement&amp;#x2F;course change&amp;#x2F;etc.&lt;p&gt;But &amp;gt; you can throw and rock and find another seat to warm the next day&lt;p&gt;Ummm, nope, not everyone&amp;#x27;s resume is pristine or has a portfolio to share. Lots of immensely talented people are at companies far outside Silicon Valley, both the place and the spirit. Not everyone can point to some app or site for public consumption, lots of work is on internal tools or programs or DevOps that no outsider sees or knows about, or is protected by all kinds of non-disclosure and IP restrictions. Some great people have an awful boss who would never provide a recommendation. There&amp;#x27;s a million reasons why getting a new job can be hard, be grateful that it appears easy from your perspective but recognize many, many extremely capable and talented people aren&amp;#x27;t in the same situation.</text></comment>