upvote
It's a failure of hiring, planning, and management. It's an off the books opportunity cost. It's an off the books cost of hiring a replacement. And if over hiring was done willfully, then yes it's straight up unethical.
reply
Irresponsible, careless, negligent. No planning leads to all of this. Ultimately unethical from this point of view
reply
Actually, it is. You have been blinded by capitalism to consider it ethical.

The tribes usually treat the members as a family. While kicking someone from a tribe can happen, it's considered to be a harsh punishment.

In a tribe, when hard times come, people usually redistribute. That's a normal, human way of dealing with that situation. Not a layoff.

The other aspect is the economic crises. When a central bank decides to increase interest rates, it decreases lending to new investments in favor of lower inflation. This can lead to layoffs, instead of having inflation inflicted on everyone (especially the rich with huge savings). So that decision is essentially some random guys get kicked out of economic (and societal) participation in order to prevent more redistribution of existing wealth.

If you think about it, yes layoffs are deeply immoral. But we can understand, why they happen in capitalism, as a sort of big tragedy of the commons.

reply
It's a job. Not a tribe.

The role an employer plays in societies varies from culture to culture, but note that in many cultures, it is "just a job".

reply
Yes, that's what people tell themselves to deal with it psychologically. That it's just a job, not a community, and you better not make friends in the workplace (despite spending majority of your life there). And that when you're unemployed, life just goes on, as if it doesn't mean much.

Like when a traumatised kid never loved by the parents concludes that life is harsh and love doesn't exist, so better be tough.

reply
> Yes, that's what people tell themselves to deal with it psychologically. That it's just a job, not a community, and you better not make friends in the workplace (despite spending majority of your life there). And that when you're unemployed, life just goes on, as if it doesn't mean much.

That's a lot of stuff you're saying. Not what I'm saying.

reply
Sure. Also the profitability of a company is just a number, and shareholders dividend is just fiduciary fictions, and company hierarchy is just arbitrary title attaching this or that person to this or that loosely defined role.

Drama is just in the head of people melted in the ambient narrative, sure.

reply
My employer is not my “tribe”. That is crazy. We have a contract saying I do X units of work and they pay me Y in return. Either of us end it at any time.

At least this is in the case in the US. What you are saying might be true in other cultures.

reply
What we have in the USA is not necessarily the final and best form of all interactions, as much as it pains me to say it.

Most people's reactions to large-scale movements like this seem to imply that we feel there should be something more than a simple "money duty" between employer and employee, and we seem to also have respect for companies that act that way (e.g, some Japanese companies perhaps, or baseball teams keeping a sick player on the payroll so they get healthcare even though they never play another game).

Attempting to realize that duty and at the same time abscond it to the state or the family may be an aspect of the failing.

reply
And yet, employers love to use the "we're a family", "we're a team", and other such messaging, especially in the tech industry. They elide the transactional nature of the entire relationship.
reply
deleted
reply
> layoffs are deeply immoral

It's no more immoral than you deciding to buy from Safeway, even though you'd been buying from Fred Meyer before.

reply
Safeway won’t starve and die if I decide to buy from Fred Meyer. You really don’t see that an individual is not on equal footing with multibillion company? It is absolutely immoral. And I’m not even talking about charity, those people were hired and did actual job for the fucking trillion dollar company.
reply
Several grocery stores in Seattle have closed recently. The same with local Starbucks outlets. Locations that don't make money get closed, even if the rest of the company is doing well.

Also, employees can quit anytime, no notice required. Nobody is obliged to work.

reply
> Several grocery stores in Seattle have closed recently. The same with local Starbucks outlets. Locations that don't make money get closed, even if the rest of the company is doing well.

Irrelevant to the topic at hand. Don’t give me a sob story about mom and pop shop, we’re talking about a trillion dollar company.

> Also, employees can quit anytime, no notice required. Nobody is obliged to work.

Okay? What’s your point?

reply
> Don’t give me a sob story about mom and pop shop

The grocery stores were run by national chains. Starbucks is global.

> What’s your point?

It's symmetric. Companies employ at will, and workers work at will.

reply
> The grocery stores were run by national chains. Starbucks is global.

So you’re confirming my point that billion dollar companies (like Starbucks killing mom and pop shop) have disproportionately more power over individuals or what are you saying?

> It's symmetric. Companies employ at will, and workers work at will.

Workers don’t work at will. Last time I checked UBI is not there, so workers work to pay the bills and put food on the table.

reply
Yeah because marxists systems "take such good care" off people in comparison.
reply
Marxist systems don’t exist in real life.
reply
They do in some peoples heads as an utopian dream.
reply
It's an unpriced negative externality.
reply
It is unethical, if there was nothing wrong with their performance and the company never tried to find a replacement position within the company. Stop licking boots, I heard they don’t even taste that good.
reply
When done for profit maximizing reasons it's not any worse than capitalism itself, but then this degrades into whether capitalism is ethical which is off topic
reply
Profit maximization makes for the high standard of living we enjoy.
reply
The one where one trip to ER can leave you on the street and students have six digit debts?
reply
Ironically, you picked two systems that are heavily interfered with by the government.

Back in the Great Depression, my great grandmother got sick and was hospitalized, and they took care of her until she passed. My grandfather did not have enough to pay the bill. The hospital told him not to worry, just pay what he could. It took him a while, but he paid the bill in full.

reply
Was the hospital affiliated with a religious order?
reply
Heavily interfered how? Canada / UK / Australia have healthcare which is "heavily interfered" as you call it, and they're better off for it
reply
> Back in Great Depression

Why not civil war?

> It took him a while, but he paid the bill in full.

How long was “a while” specifically? And how much did it affect your grandfathers life?

reply