Some years ago, I made it past a round of layoffs. I started counting who got let go. At least 70% of them were POCs. Most of the 30% of white people were about to retire and packaged out early. Definitely not representative of the company's demographics.
Hopefully it wasn't disruptive, but I've migrated my primary account here to Fosstodon and away from mozilla.social. With recent announcements[1] I figured I would just get out ahead of the inevitable shutdown of the instance. Thanks for following me over if you have done so.
Mozilla is laying off 60 people (about 5% of its employees) and killing or scaling back some products like VPN, Relay (email obfuscation), Hubs (3D virtual world) and Mastodon while continuing to focus on Firefox. https://buff.ly/3ux2D4G#Firefox#Mozilla#Layoffs
I appreciate that the media is not staying silent on this topic. It's infuriating, it's unfair, it's unnecessary, and it only benefits the few at the top. It needs to stop and we all need to demand that it stops.
Business Insider: Tech layoffs are hitting companies that are doing just fine.
This a good story about how mass layoffs happened across the Tech industry the past year, and specifically at Microsoft:
tl;dr: Pandemic started, work from home productivity went up, demand for remote work products shot up, projections were revised upwards, mass hiring happened to meet expected demand. Demand suddenly flatlined, but companies were still on the hook for massive payroll and hiring incentives. Major shareholders demanded downward pressure on wages. Mass layoffs happened.
“How we got here. Some inside scoops from Microsoft on handling early days of pandemic to cutting over 20K folks in 2023”
Canadian journalism takes another hit - layoffs impacting large and small newsrooms, as well as the award-winning flagship national investigative news program, W5. Ooof.
'More big names from CTV National news axed in latest round of Bell Media layoffs'
Terrible news from @NASAJPL today. After all of their spectacular accomplishments, many of these talented men and women were sent packing.
Revolting.
Video coming soon! #nasa#layoffs#bloodywednesday 🩸
#NASA’s #Mars Exploration Lab Lays Off 570 Workers Because #Congress Can’t Get It Together
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory put robots on Mars, but Congressional foot-dragging is forcing the #space agency to lay off hundreds of workers. “After exhausting all other measures to adjust to a lower budget from NASA, and in the absence of an #FY24 appropriation from Congress, we have had to make the difficult decision to reduce the #JPL workforce through #layoffs.” https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxjyb5/nasa-jpl-layoff-workers-congress-cant-get-it-together
As much as we love our science and tech, the nature of human politics is such that we can ill afford to dwell on just our interests. The layoffs at NASA/JPL are why we should always pay attention to our daily politics, and be prepared to participate in it when the situation calls for it.
In the most direct sense, people are losing their jobs because Congress is fighting over the budget of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) project.
Hard drive full? Save time by deleting files according to a random sample stratified by file type and file size. Don't plan ahead for the work required to fix any problems caused by the missing files.
8% of #NASA_JPL being laid off. The mood on lab was already dire when I left two years ago. I worry that this isn't the only hammer that will drop on the space sciences this year, with the House fighting to cut federal spending levels.
Sharon and I often go to National Press Club on Fridays for tacos. Hope our media colleagues found sustenance, hope, and a few leads with their tortillas and jalapenos. #Journalism#Employment#Media#Layoffs