Not sure of your familiarity with FAANG pre-2022, but this is absolutely not the norm.

joe_mamba 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

ZIRP was also not the norm. Times change though.

But these are profitable companies, now their cash on hand can actually earn interest.

	▲	joe_mamba 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		>But these are profitable companies Q: You know what investors and shareholders love more than having 1 billion dollars? A: Having 2 billion dollars. And with all the money being burned on AI, having 2 billion is better than 1. If mass layoffs causes the stock to go from 1 to 2, then guess what's gonna happen? In the ZIRP era companies would hire needlessly to get the stock up because that signaled growth to investors. Now it's the opposite, you trim because that gets the stock up, not because they conspire together to lay off people.
	▲	loeg 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Why is the highest and best use of a company's free cash paying the least productive employees, instead of returning cash to shareholders or investing it in something more productive?

darth_avocado 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Pre 2022 also did not have this many employees in FAANG.

loeg 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Can you elaborate? I've been working in tech for 15 years and FAANG for 5. We've always had layoffs.

	▲	WalterBright 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I've been in the tech industry for 45 years. Layoffs happen regularly. Well, not regularly, what it is is a chaotic system. There will be good times and bad times. The best way to deal with it is to immediately save, at a minimum, 6 months of runway. Preferably a year. When you're in between jobs, work on: 1. improving your job skills 2. network 3. build your resume by contributing to open source 4. start your own business
	▲	refulgentis 4 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I don't intend to be dismissive by sharing a bunch, I ate a bunch of downvotes and there's no singular, like, Wikipedia article for "tech layoffs spiked significantly in 2022 and have stayed elevated" - so this is a mix of informal and formal and academic and business news that treats that knowledge as implicit. https://www.nerdwallet.com/finance/learn/tech-layoffs https://www.reddit.com/r/Layoffs/comments/1ljvpr4/where_all_... https://progresschamber.org/insights/tech-has-shed-nearly-20... https://www.washington.edu/news/2025/05/14/tech-industry-lay... https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/tech-layoffs-2022.html