Nearly 25,000 tech workers were laid off in the first weeks of 2024. Why is that?::undefined

  • @AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8•10 months ago

    I don’t get how there’s any connection. Sure, it sucks to own commercial real estate, or be one of the service companies that grew up to support office work, but isn’t the whole problem being that tech and other large companies no longer want to pay for that? This should be a bonanza for tech companies, saving billions of dollars that formerly went toward renting office space. Why aren’t we expecting a tech company boom?

    • @ricecake@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      4•10 months ago

      The anticipation is not that it’ll hurt the tech companies, but the economy as a whole. A generalized economic slowdown impacts everyone, even if you specifically benefited from it.

      If I could tell you exactly how it’ll unfold, I’d be using that to make a lot of money instead. It’s not even certain that it will happen.

      Commercial real estate was for a long time a roughly predictable investment, and profitable.
      Now profitability is severely reduced because people, including tech companies, are cutting their usage.
      If the market collapses, it’s unclear how far down it’ll drag the economy, so companies are bracing for it to be bad.