Since the dawning of 2022, the Tech sector has shed over a quarter million jobs (233,000), and the bleeding isn’t about to stop. And while I hate to see folks lose a job, two things about this still amuse me.
First, the unprecedented growth that led to the hiring was the result of tax cuts and economic policy under the mean-tweeter. Donald Trump’s economy broke all the Obama admins self-imposed glass ceilings, fueling record growth and employment in every demographic.
The tech sector, with few exceptions, is a swirling cesspool of progressive poop. It played a huge role in shifting the balance of power to the Left and, with it…what you always get—crapped on.
The second thing is explored in a recent piece at The Daily Wire. Middle managers and staff are always the first to go when tasked with cutting payroll fat. The top and the bottom are considered essential. Everything else is a target-rich environment.
DEI employees have seen an elevated degree of attrition relative to their colleagues since late 2020, with the trend accelerating in the last six months, according to an analysis from Revelio Labs. “Bearing in mind the typically small size of DEI teams,” Revelio said, “these outflows likely amount to the exodus of entire diversity teams.”
More than 300 DEI professionals have left companies such as Amazon, Intel, and Twitter since the middle of last year.
It’s not a big number when you stand it next to 233,000, but most of that dead weight was added in the last few years with salaries and benefits packages that employers don’t mind excising from their payrolls. And absent another George Floys, that honeymoon appears to be over.
Bloated headcounts and excessive compensation have drawn the attention of numerous Silicon Valley investors and hedge fund managers. Children’s Investment Fund Management CEO Christopher Hohn told Google CEO Sundar Pichai that “cost discipline is now required as revenue growth is slowing,” while Altimeter Capital Management CEO Brad Gerstner pressed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to reverse the “lack of focus and fitness” at the company.
It’ll get worse before it gets better, and again, I’m not applauding their loss of income or lifestyle, but I’ve worked for and run businesses with tight margins. You can bitch about overpaid executives, but they should be doing their part by getting rid of that which does not keep everyone else employed.
Non-productive payroll is a waste of resources. It sucks away money from productive workers and innovators. It is the single biggest problem with rising public education costs (and property taxes in the Granite State). It is also the easiest way to reduce costs without impacting productivity or the product itself.
Big people with big flashlights looking for fast fixes will quickly find themselves wondering why virtue signaling needs to cost so much. They might even notice that it’s become an anchor dragging everyone down with it.
You can’t run a business the way most boards run school districts, and if you truly want education dollars to matter (for supplies and teachers, for example), gut the bloated administrative state from the Superintendent’s office to the schools themselves. A growing part of which are Diversity officers. They are “middle managers,” like the majority of school admin positions, that suck up resources for the purpose of sucking up more resources.
They, too, could face a similar reckoning as they have in big tech if the investors, parents, and taxpayers focus on how much less they are getting for all the extra money the schools are spending.
That’s a big if, and the argument against cuts is that they will hurt students and teachers, but that’s a lie. Cutting unproductive admin overhead frees up money for teachers and teaching. If someone can find a way to message that effectively, you’ll be the tip of any spear in the way against this fiscal and cultural abuse.
