this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
254 points (99.2% liked)

Technology

59441 readers
5517 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
all 31 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Cossty@lemmy.world 42 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I am more surprised that eBay has more than 11,000 employees.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 24 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Parts of that site still feel like they’re from 2000. What do these people do?

[–] PlatinumSf@pawb.social 21 points 9 months ago

Sites at that scale that cannot afford errors, downtime, or system breaches operate massive IT teams just to keep the systems running. That's before even touching Logistics,Advertising, customer service, seller outreach, brand management, human resources, etc, etc. Ebay in 2023 had 132 Million customers. That's 12,000 customers per employee per year, or 32 customers per employee per day assuming they worked the full 365 solid. A rather lean storefront actually, probably propped up significantly by the labor of their third-party sellers.

[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 0 points 9 months ago

That's probably what eBay thought as well. And let them go.

[–] HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works 23 points 9 months ago

The C in C-suite stands for Cunt

[–] ElleChaise@kbin.social 15 points 9 months ago

This should cover their asses on that big lawsuit they just lost for harassing that poor old couple. Projected profits would be down ~$300m over the period of time they intended to pay this out, I assume, not much of a mathematician. Gross.

[–] BigMacHole@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago

It's a good thing we haven't raised their taxes or wages. I heard that as long as we don't do that they'll NEVER lay people off or raise prices!

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 4 points 9 months ago

And the techBro war on skilled wages continues...

[–] GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

We need laws around layoffs, stat. It shouldn't be legal for execs to layoff a thousand people and still keep their own jobs. It's their failure that caused the issue in the first place - they've been safe for too long.

[–] Nudding@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Lmao they're closer to criminalizing lunch breaks than that.

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 1 points 9 months ago

The only issue they’re having is number not go up.

[–] RadialMonster@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

And what would that law be?

[–] GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I mean, I'm not a lawmaker, but ideally if execs do layoffs they should either have to also layoff a certain percentage of upper level execs dependent on the # of people laid off, and/or the company or execs should have to pay fees dependent on the # of people laid off.

[–] Mossheart@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago

No C suite bonuses if layoff happened within the year and no share buybacks for companies who initiated layoffs in that year either.

[–] RadialMonster@lemmy.world -1 points 9 months ago (3 children)

You're suggesting the government should be be involved in a private business hiring / firing decisions? And pay fee's also? So if a business is having a down time, they don't have funds for payroll, you want to fine them? A large project concludes, they lay off those people, they need a fine? So they'll need to calculate fines into the price they charge for projects?

[–] Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Maybe look at this another way:

The government should represent the interests of the people. If the people have shown interest in curbing these layoff behaviors, where thousands of people lose their jobs while management remains in place with no apparent cuts to the top billing, then why would lawmakers not want to translate these interests into legislation?

I get a reasonable wariness of keeping the government out of private business, but if you have a town of 10 people, all employed by local business owner, and that business owner lays off two people, you have a large percentage of the population affected. If the townspeople enact a local ordinance to prevent this kind of behavior in the future, would they be in the wrong?

[–] RadialMonster@lemmy.world -1 points 9 months ago

To prevent ... what kind of behavior exactly? Firing people? I'm for the government protecting peoples interest, but also a business needs the freedom to hire and fire as they see fit, without beuaracy involved. Maybe you're more referring to a union?

how do you know management is not also being fired? Should the 'people' be given a list of potential fires and they vote on who the business can fire?

[–] Facebones@reddthat.com 1 points 9 months ago

It's easy to screech "nuh uh" at ideas people toss around, where are YOUR solutions that aren't "Shouldn't have been part of the 10% laid off, fucking losers! ALL HAIL CORPORATE PROFITS!"

[–] GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Yep, that sounds great to me! At least for large corporations. Obviously shouldn't apply to contractors, but that sounds great.

[–] RadialMonster@lemmy.world -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

you are forgetting that businesses already pay unemployment. That is their 'fee' basically. Your unemployment funds come from the payments a business makes during their monthly or quarterly taxes they pay to the state. When they fire anyone , their unemployment payments they have to make increase the following years. Each year the state looks at how many people a company hired / fired and adjusts their payments for the year. And that calculation takes account the last 3 or so years where I am.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


eBay is following in the footsteps of Google, Discord, Twitch, Unity, and more — by laying off loads of workers this January instead of right before the holidays.

Despite reporting profit of $1.3 billion last quarter, which it described as “another quarter of solid results,” eBay today suggests that there is a “Need for Change.” Company president and CEO Jamie Iannone writes that “there is more we can do to ensure our success,” and argues that eBay should be a “more nimble” company that “makes decisions more quickly” to position itself for “long-term, sustainable growth.”

Never mind that last quarter, eBay CFO Steve Priest already said he was “extremely proud of our teams for delivering on their quarterly financial commitments, maintaining prudent cost discipline, and executing key deliverables in support of our strategy.”

eBay also argues that it hired too quickly, an excuse tech companies have been trotting out for over a year: “While we are making progress against our strategy, our overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business,” writes Iannone today.

It asks that all US employees work from home tomorrow while the company processes this news.

Incidentally, Iannone’s predecessor — former eBay CEO Devin Wenig — got a $57 million severance package after the company cyberstalked and harassed a pair of its critics, sending them live insects, a bloody pig mask, and a funeral wreath.


The original article contains 294 words, the summary contains 231 words. Saved 21%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

It's probably because of AI.