Why do you think the workforce who generated record profits for Intel only a couple years back are suddenly "unneeded"? That's just reflects the dumb decisions made by the leadership. If anything the CEOs and upper management who made those bad decisions and still taking millions in bonuses should be fired.
How is the previous revenue relevant? For a rational company, workforce is needed to increase revenue in one way or another. If the company is rational and wanted to increase their revenue, why would they decide to lay them off (and incur additional expenses)?
It's relevant because it proves that majority of the workers are competent. If you are not able to succeed with a competent workforce then you're just a bad CEO/leader and should step down.
Also it's wrong to assume companies are rational. If you are constantly in a cycle of hiring and firing employees, then it indicates you have a no long term vision and no skills to navigate the market.
How does it prove it? Why the same logic doesn’t apply to the upper management, they were at the company when it had record profits. So they are competent enough to recognize that certain efforts are not needed anymore and it’s time to cut losses.
Same logic does not apply to the upper management because they are not directly involved in generating value for the company. Elon Musk is not out there writing code, Tim Cook is not assembling iPhone or even designing it. Telling someone what to do is not even close to the labor of person actually doing it. And when the "upper management" makes bad decisions and results in huge losses, bottom rung employees are the first one to go.
You are saying that they are not directly involved in generating "value" and then saying that bad decisions result in huge losses. That just doesn't compute. And how do you know that laid off people "directly" involved in generating value? E.g. many (most?) recruiters are awesome, but there's not much value to generate when there's no hiring.
If layoffs are the result of bad management, does it mean that there's no good management in tech, since everyone is doing them?
I think the journalist is bang on point. The company can pay $1.5B in dividends but cannot pay enough to keep their workforce. Corps will do everything to avoid paying their workforce fair share of the profits.
The Intel workforce and leadership is failing to perform and continue bringing in sufficient revenue to justify a workforce of its size, and they will all lose their jobs anyway if it continues.
That seems a good reason not to spend money on dividends which I don't think will help the company become more profitable. Cutting jobs to save money is understandable, but the savings should be used to invest into the business.
Not saying I support this, because losing work sucks, but shareholders are the ones that own the company - the C suite is just there to run it on their behalf.
If shareholders think that firing a bunch of people to “eliminate waste” and pulling capital from the company in the form dividends to reinvest elsewhere is the way to maximise their returns (as a whole) then that’s what will happen.
Police most often serves the capital owners through the politicians funded by capital owners. The farmers protest in India was a good example of this. Police tried to barricade, beat up the farmers who were protesting a law that would’ve benefited the agro companies and put small farmers on a weak position.
You know nothing about the laws, they were hugely for the benefit for the small farmers. Regardless, it's a lie that police beat up farmers. Yes they did put up barricades to stop them from entering the capital, but nobody was beaten, unless they broke the barricades and attacked the police. The farmers stayed on the border of capital for months, nobody said anything to them. Stop spreading propaganda.
Delhi police has a history of beating up protesters and Delhi police works directly for central government and not state administration. You would know if you follow Indian news.
> You know nothing about the laws
Personal attacks usually indicate defending a flawed position. The farmers participating in the largest protest in history definitely knew how the law affected them, as opposed to the govt who passed the laws without discussion.
> Regardless, it's a lie that police beat up farmers.
There are literally tons of videos police beating up farmers. So I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
> Stop spreading propaganda.
The Indian news media did propaganda against farmers. These news channels who never say a word against BJP govt tried so hard to undermine the protest that they were banned from covering the protest. They literally have a name “Godi Media” meaning media sitting in the lap of Modi.
You are wrong, communism was never about equality of outcome, it was more about equality of opportunity. This is part of red scare propaganda.
Also US had a lot to do with Cuba and Pol Pot if you study history.
You obviously did not live under communist propaganda. Communism was 100% about the equality of outcome - everyone was equal and was supposed to get his/her equal share. I lived 15 years in Romania under communism, 8 of these years under daily propaganda at school so I know this first hand.
The question was whether communism meant equal outcome and the answer is No. I’m not gonna defend Romania, Soviet Russia or any other old regimes on how they implemented communism.
The context here is about unions. Democracy at work is important and unions are the best way to achieve it in a capitalist nation.
How come people who never lived under commie regime claim to know more about communism than the people who actually lived under commie regimes?
Did you obtain you theoretical knowledge of what actual communism is - purely from Lenin's books? Have you tried to reconcile communism theory to communism in practice?
As I recall Lenin didn't think actual communism was obtainable without a long period of enforced socialism .. so the regime under Lenin was never actual communism (at least according to Lenin) and not especially socialist other than in name by Lenin.
In any case it segued into Stalinism .. and all of these were oppressive authoritarian top down rule.
People that think of post revolution Russia as a good example of communism are the kind of people that think of the USofA as a good example of capitalism.
"people who never lived under commie regime" - I get to hear this so often. We live in under a capitalist regime where 1% of the people own the rest of the population. Basic human needs like healthcare and shelter are paywalled by big corporations. Do you sincerely think wasting your life to make those 1% even more richer is somehow better than communism?
Btw, I didn't even claim that communism is the best way forward, you just assumed it. I would rather advocate for socialism which has better chances to succeed in US. Still, the moment we wave off 10k from student loans people start shouting "communism". Those same people got millions of dollars in PPP loans, still fired their employees and saw nothing wrong with it.
The main context here was about unions and people still cry "communism" whenever they hear the word union. I have seen immense benefits of unions from past generation and feel sad that they are not as prevalent today. "United we bargain, divided we beg" is the whole point of unions and still people choose to beg because "big bad communism". This propaganda has been enforced on us so much by govt that we forget what's good for us and that makes me sad.
One has to wonder whether these decisions are based on logic or on what Wall Street(investors) demands. Now is a high time for unionization among software devs irrespective of their pay scale.
The impact being to sell your house, car and other belongings, often for pennies and uproot your children who have only known US as their home. It's insanely cruel to want to immediately deport H1B holders who have been paying taxes for 10-15 years. And all this because Wall Street thought the profits were not high enough.
> Since they often get favoritism in layoffs, why favor them even more?
How is it a favor to give someone more time to search for jobs? That's just being considerate.
> he was laid off first in a team of 18 Chinese H1Bs because the rest of the team
ok let’s try in small chunks see if you will understand.
“AC21 § 106(a): Labor cert or I-140 filed a year or more ago
Under AC21 § 106, an H-1B nonimmigrant can receive H-1B status beyond the six-year maximum, in one-year increments, if 365 days or more have passed since either an application for Alien Labor Certification (Form ETA 750A-B or ETA 9089) or a petition for immigrant worker (Form I-140) has been filed on the alien's behalf.
The priority date in an employment-based case is the date that a labor certification application was first filed, or, for those categories exempt from the labor certification requirement, the date on which an employment-based preference petition (I-140) was filed with USCIS. Since that same date is also the referent to eligibility for this benefit, knowing the alien's priority date is a convenient way of tracking eligibility for H-1B extensions beyond 6 years.
H-1B status under this provision may be granted in one-year increments until the labor certification or I-140 is denied. If the labor certification or I-140 is approved, the individual can continue obtaining 1-year extensions thereafter, until an adjustment of status or immigrant visa application is either denied or approved.”
Do you understand the meaning of these paragraphs? Or do you need further help?
It’s not bad to be wrong. It’s bad to not know when to stop.
See the sibling comment for your answer.
P.S. I find it depressing that people like yourself who successfully got through this immigration madness keep their boots on the necks of the unlucky ones. You were not special, you were lucky.
Nobody is choosing to stay on H1B for years at end. What a ridiculous proposition. What would be the point of that ? The people who are on H1B status after a number of years are the ones who are stuck in various stages of the green card process (i140, i485, etc.) because of backlogs. There are many rules that govern the finer points of these issues, and going into them over here is futile. It is not clear what you are trying to argue. If you wish to state that people on temp visas signed up knowing about the uncertainty, that is a common enough opinion, and you can state that and that would be the end of it. Why are you picking technical points to argue where you don't possess the expertise ?
You cannot file the I-485 unless the date is current. This is not and has not been the case for India and China for many categories for many years. And even if you manage to get the I-485 based EAD, it is provisional in nature which has its own risks and overheads.
The visa is temporary by definition, and so you win and get the "technically correct" badge. 10 points to Gryffindor. May I interest you in the writings of Ayn Rand ?
> Apple employees..get to do some really meaningful and impactful work.
Meaningful and impactful in what way? They make phones, that’s it. They are not solving some big world issues. World won’t end if we don’t get phones with bigger screens and better cameras every year.
> Some would even argue that Apple (and other big tech companies are OVERpaying...)
No. None of the tech companies are overpaying, they are in fact underpaying. Employees get a tiny fraction of the profit they generate. They are not even paying the taxes they’re supposed to.
> It is also worth noting that bonuses are customarily paid when the business is doing better than projected, but Apple's revenues were down 5% in 2022.
Apple made $117.2 billion in profits in 2022. Surely they can pay their employees bonuses and better wages in general if they want to.
Oh come on, you’re not even trying to have a fruitful discussion. You don’t have to love Apple, but at least put a sliver of effort into the discussion.
I’m not an apple basher and spend thousands a year on them, but what exactly are they at this point other than a commodity tech company? They’re not going to space, saving the planet or transforming technology (any more).
Meaningful to me is something that improves quality of life for majority of people like vaccines, cure for terminal decease, better public transport etc. Making a $1000 phone sadly does not fall into same category.
Apple did push the industry with personal computers in 80s and better smartphones in 2007 but since then it’s been very incremental improvements.
It’s slightly more convenient than carrying a paper transit pass and a credit card(which don’t consume energy) sure, but nothing life changing for anyone.
Nah, it lets you navigate systems you've never used before if you're on a trip, or replan if you took the wrong train or there's a delay on a line. Or give up and call your mom to come pick you up if it breaks down.
NFC payments don't consume much energy on a phone either; you can generally set them to work even if the battery is dead.
Those products are significantly different than each other and have their own pros and cons. It's a straw man to say that they are simply "more of the same".
