Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Thu 05/29/2025 View Wed 05/28/2025 View Tue 05/27/2025 View Mon 05/26/2025 View Sun 05/25/2025 View Sat 05/24/2025 View Fri 05/23/2025
2022-11-07 Economy
A wave of layoffs is sweeping the US. Here are the major companies that have announced cuts so far, from Twitter to Peloton.
[INSIDER] Twitter is the latest high-profile company to get hit with layoffs this year after its new owner, Elon Musk, ordered a 50% headcount reduction.

Major American businesses have picked up the pace of firing in 2022.

Peloton has laid off thousands of employees this year. Real estate firm Re/Max slashed 17% of its workforce. Even traditionally layoff-resistant companies like Netflix have made cuts, and now companies that saw a pandemic-era boom, like Shopify, are cutting hundreds of jobs.

The reason, broadly, is twofold: business growth is slowing, while labor costs are increasing. The combination is causing American companies across a variety of industries to slash headcount.

Here are some of the most notable examples so far:
Posted by Besoeker 2022-11-07 06:07|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ]  Top

#1 Fuck Joe Biden Let's Go Brandon
Posted by Frank G 2022-11-07 06:32||   2022-11-07 06:32|| Front Page Top

#2 A bit difficult to blame Musk's Twitter actions on Biden.
Btw I have questioned Musk's firing frenzy, and here you go

Posted by European Conservative 2022-11-07 06:48||   2022-11-07 06:48|| Front Page Top

#3 ...I would call attention to one thing that all the companies mentioned have in common: they are primarily online companies (with the qualified exception of ReMax).

It's been pointed out elsewhere that Mr. Musk may have inadvertently struck a second blow against the Net-tatorships: by taking an axe to Twitter's workforce, he has provided cover to others who want to desperately trim their manning but didn't dare be the first (I'm lookin' at you, Meta).

Mike
Posted by MikeKozlowski 2022-11-07 06:59||   2022-11-07 06:59|| Front Page Top

#4 #2 A bit difficult to blame Musk's Twitter actions on Biden.

We're told Biden is in charge of the nation's economy when things are going well. So, he's gets the shit when it's not. Twitter was overstaffed, and spending $ on labor that was apparently not doing enough to justify - if he can cut that many and still operate
Posted by Frank G 2022-11-07 07:10||   2022-11-07 07:10|| Front Page Top

#5 Personally I think presidents have a rather limited influence on the economy unless they really want to screw it up (which they can!)

Most internet companies are young, had too much money on their hands, had an aggressive growth policy and therefore hired too many people. My point was that it takes more than a week to find out who's redundant and who's not.

Implementing new strategies and policies also takes some time. Selling bluechecks for 8 dollars is quite dumb, because all they are going to prove is that you have 8 dollars. That defies their purpose and makes them obsolete.

No wonder people are testing the system by posing as "therealElonMusk" etc.
Posted by European Conservative 2022-11-07 07:19||   2022-11-07 07:19|| Front Page Top

#6 That defies their purpose and makes them obsolete.

No. Instead of Twitter picking and choosing who's blue checking, he's made it egalitarian.
Posted by Procopius2k 2022-11-07 07:40||   2022-11-07 07:40|| Front Page Top

#7 That defies their purpose

Not if the purpose is to authenticate a user.

Authentication is not the same as validation.

The left-libs, the perverts and the liberal Globalists want TWTR to validate their POV, present it as superior, give it the same imprimatur of Establishment validity that New York Times bylines (used to) provide.

A level playing field in the public square does not privilege anyone. That’s the whole point. Liberal Globalists can’t understand this.

Posted by Billy B  2022-11-07 07:50||   2022-11-07 07:50|| Front Page Top

#8 For liberal Globalist blue checks, right thinking is based on membership in a club — the club of the “right” people, what used to be called The Establishment. To them a blue check is just another way to brag that you’re connected to the right people.

In the US, that’s the Swamp — the east coast DC and media elite + the left coast’s Hollywood + Big Tech vermin.

In Europe, liberal Globalists like to brag that they’re connected to mediocre EU corruptocrats like Ursula von der Leyen. No wonder they stand up for the blue check bullshit.
Posted by Billy B  2022-11-07 08:00||   2022-11-07 08:00|| Front Page Top

#9 Spread a rumor that the rest of Silly Con Valley is secretly backing Musk's takeover to provide cover for their own layoffs.

Watch the fun.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-11-07 08:04||   2022-11-07 08:04|| Front Page Top

#10 Evil Empires collapsing? Report: Meta announcing "large scale lay-offs" Monday
Posted by Frank G 2022-11-07 08:32||   2022-11-07 08:32|| Front Page Top

#11 Alibi Biden Didn't Inherit a Bad Economy, He Created One

It started Day One with the Keystone Pipeline cancellation
Posted by Frank G 2022-11-07 08:37||   2022-11-07 08:37|| Front Page Top

#12 The idea of the Twitter bluecheck had (imo) little to do with vanity, it simply proved that you are who you say you are.

Twitter benefits from this, so do the users who now know that a certain Mr. De Santis really is the governor of Florida tweeting.
Posted by European Conservative 2022-11-07 08:44||   2022-11-07 08:44|| Front Page Top

#13 Btw Facebook (Meta, or whatever) is the most useless company on earth. The day it croaks I'll break out the champagne.
Posted by European Conservative 2022-11-07 08:47||   2022-11-07 08:47|| Front Page Top

#14 Well, I think it reduces a twitter user's credibility as a voice in the wind to what it should be. Just another voice. I think it's a good thing.

It doesn't matter you're a deSantis or a Musk or Joe Smith or the guy who lives in a dorm room. You're all equally unimportant and anything you say in the twitterverse is hereon just noise.

For too long it has been a platform for campaigning and causes and influencing public opinion. So much so, that governments and officials had begun to lazily depend on it instead of getting out there and getting shit done, shaking hands and hearing their voters in person.

A small change, but it reduces the power of twitter to influence in the long run. Now, you'll see total idiots make stupid jokes from the name of your favourite suited deity, gradually they shall be stripped off their charisma. And we don't need charisma. We need men with spine.

Also, as people here have suggested, the blue thingy was a mark of 'eliteness' that has just been devalued to an $8 subscription. That declares twitter is no more in the business of knighting opinionated people for being unequal to others. As a platform it equalizes everything subtly.

The profits from this will not be immediate, and 'experts' will opine that it's a stupid move. But this is the future. Everyone is important but that makes them all equally unimportant.
Posted by Dron66046 2022-11-07 10:40||   2022-11-07 10:40|| Front Page Top

#15 And the fact checking thing was genius too. Whoever thought it up.
Posted by Dron66046 2022-11-07 10:42||   2022-11-07 10:42|| Front Page Top

#16 Btw Facebook (Meta, or whatever) is the most useless company on earth. The day it croaks I'll break out the champagne.

From your mouth to God's ear.

Big Layoffs at Facebook Expected as Big Tech's Big Pucker Continues
Posted by DarthVader 2022-11-07 11:01||   2022-11-07 11:01|| Front Page Top

#17 Bubbles burst as all bubbles must.
Posted by badanov 2022-11-07 11:21||   2022-11-07 11:21|| Front Page Top

#18 Like many business sectors, the tech sector has gotten itself balled up in looking for "the next big thing," AKA fad.

Fads don't have legs from an economic standpoint, though they may make a few people rich short term.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-11-07 11:49||   2022-11-07 11:49|| Front Page Top

#19 One of the consumer tech sector's big problems is their ince$tu0u$ relationship with the media

Remember how the media wet themselves over the Segway?

It was going to change everything. They told us it was.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-11-07 11:56||   2022-11-07 11:56|| Front Page Top

#20 Personally I think presidents have a rather limited influence on the economy unless they really want to screw it up (which they can!)

And so Joe Biden has starting on Day 1 of his administration when he cancelled Keystone Pipeline along with a whole bunch of oil leases. He (or more likely his handlers) had to know what the result would be so, yeah, he really wanted to screw it up.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2022-11-07 12:04||   2022-11-07 12:04|| Front Page Top

#21 Overnight we went from energy independence to begging the Soddies, Ruskies and Venezuelans for more oil. A casual, objective observer might go so far as to call it deliberate sabotage of the American economy. Maybe this whole war in Ukraine thingy is merely cover so Biden can blame inflation on Putin. Wouldn't put it past him.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2022-11-07 12:09||   2022-11-07 12:09|| Front Page Top

#22 Selling bluechecks for 8 dollars is quite dumb, because all they are going to prove is that you have 8 dollars.
No, it is a quick check on your Real World Identity because it is tied to a bank account in some way. It makes it harder for the spambots, in other words, not impossible -- just harder.
Posted by magpie 2022-11-07 12:13||   2022-11-07 12:13|| Front Page Top

#23 Got distracted there so a double post. Sorry.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2022-11-07 12:20||   2022-11-07 12:20|| Front Page Top

#24 Duplicates deleted. The gamma rays are really straying today.
Posted by trailing wife 2022-11-07 12:24||   2022-11-07 12:24|| Front Page Top

#25 Apparently this blue checkmark think wasn't that well thought out.
Posted by European Conservative 2022-11-07 12:26||   2022-11-07 12:26|| Front Page Top

#26 ^ so what? Everyone’s having a good laugh, Musk included. He can and does laugh at himself. He explicitly said that he would restore satire and comedy to Twitter. He’s succeeded.

The whole point of TWTR is NOT to instruct or get at truth. It’s to entertain. It’s no more important to our society than MAD magazine was, or the old Laugh-In television show.

If we stopped taking TWTR seriously — stopped pretending it’s somehow a legitimate and credible news outlet — we’d be far better off.

TWTR should be positioned as a cross between TikTok and a product placement vehicle for consumer brands. IOW, like mass-market TV sitcoms from the 1960s, with a splash of MAD and National Lampoon.
Posted by Billy B  2022-11-07 12:35||   2022-11-07 12:35|| Front Page Top

#27 "He explicitly said that he would restore satire and comedy to Twitter. He’s succeeded."

By deleting accounts that make fun of him? But no, Twitter isn't just about entertainment. It's providing (almost) real life info from all over the world. It can be very useful (sometimes).
Posted by European Conservative 2022-11-07 12:40||   2022-11-07 12:40|| Front Page Top

#28 It looks like intelligence operations masquerading as legitimate businesses are hardest hit. It's almost like the CIA budget couldn't afford overpaying Stelter any longer. How are the spooks going to influence us, if we reject the Metaverse? Hopefully, their think tanks have something better planned than BLM riots.
Posted by Super Hose 2022-11-07 12:43||   2022-11-07 12:43|| Front Page Top

#29 TikTok’s spectacular success has come at the expense of TWTR, Meta/FB, Snap and the other social media outlets. TikTok is eating their lunch because TikTok is a JOKE: it’s fun for people. They enjoy it.

No one pretends that TikTok is Changing The World / Connecting The World / Saving The World. It’s just a time waster, nothing more— and an incredible fibancial and commercial success.

I’ll bet Musk and his brain trust will sit this and restore Vine & it’s short form, silly videos to prominence. That’s the way forward.
Posted by Billy B  2022-11-07 12:45||   2022-11-07 12:45|| Front Page Top

#30 * Musk and his brain trust will get this and restore Vine & it’s short form, silly videos to prominence

Dorsey wisely bought Vine but his incompetent product people trashed it. Huge missed opportunity, which TikTok capitalized upon
Posted by Billy B  2022-11-07 12:47||   2022-11-07 12:47|| Front Page Top

#31 product placement ads

Brandon could make a fortune from “Scratch ‘n’ Sniff” ads. The SmellaVerse!

Quick! Someone call Gwyneth’s agent and get to work on pre- & post-roll S ‘n’ S ads for her patootie candles
Posted by Big Brother Is Sniffing You  2022-11-07 12:54||   2022-11-07 12:54|| Front Page Top

#32 I've from "reliable scources" that if you get laid off you should learn to code.
Posted by BrerRabbiy 2022-11-07 13:23||   2022-11-07 13:23|| Front Page Top

#33 Ive heard from...

twas me the rabbit...
Posted by BrerRabbit 2022-11-07 13:28||   2022-11-07 13:28|| Front Page Top

#34 Silly Rabbiy, kicks are for trids!
Posted by Rupert Ununter5279 2022-11-07 13:52||   2022-11-07 13:52|| Front Page Top

#35 Apparently you can't make up for unprofitability with volume. Huh.
Posted by Regular joe 2022-11-07 13:53||   2022-11-07 13:53|| Front Page Top

#36 I love this guy

Elon Musk urges independents to vote in a GOP Congress
Posted by Sonny Hatrack5106 2022-11-07 17:28||   2022-11-07 17:28|| Front Page Top

#37 The era of free money has ended. Any operation that can't earn the cost of borrowing is losing money and will be pruned.
Posted by Shamp Snurt3261 2022-11-07 21:00||   2022-11-07 21:00|| Front Page Top

21:10 newc
20:17 SteveS
18:44 magpie
18:33 Frank G
18:33 badanov
18:26 Hellfish
18:23 Hellfish
17:40 swksvolFF
17:34 Ebbuger Whuque4103
17:30 Ebbuger Whuque4103
17:02 Melancholic
16:27 Gravilet Snanter4154
16:20 Chaise Speaking for Boskone7897
16:02 Skidmark
16:01 Skidmark
15:46 Skidmark
15:41 Skidmark
15:37 swksvolFF
15:36 Skidmark
15:34 Skidmark
15:27 Skidmark
14:48 NoMoreBS
14:31 NoMoreBS
14:16 NoMoreBS









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com