Because the entire structure of the business is designed for approximately the amount of work it currently does and likely has no particular immediate use for twice as much work in most departments.

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sumeno 2 hours ago | parent [-]

In 20 years I have never been on a team that didn't have twice as much work as we had people to do it.

Businesses are not magically efficient

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hilariously 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Your experience of how the world works is usually because of what work you have done. You can't grow twice as many crops, sell twice as many groceries, drive twice as many busses, because of AI - fundamentally there's a consumption problem as well.

Many businesses are not bottlenecked by processes that are computer based.

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cootsnuck 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But the firms in the headlines doing layoffs after layoffs aren't growing crops, selling groceries, or driving busses... They're knowledge work roles in companies selling intangible products and services. It's large corporations doing this much more than SMBs.

	▲	transcriptase an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They’re also the ones constantly hiring and recruiting because internally nearly everyone benefits to having more people “under them”, and there’s a massive HR/Talent team that doesn’t go into hibernation after a 20% workforce reduction. Organizations want to grow, not because they need to but because it’s in the best interest of nearly all individuals still on the inside.
	▲	mattkrause an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		And I’m sure those companies also have “backlogs" due to limited labor/labor costs. There are always shelves to face, vehicles with deferred maintenance, and so on. Obviously, there are limits: I’m not sure what my local grocery store or bus line would do with 100 new workers, but I have no doubt they could put a few people to work right away.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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