Amazon Is Pausing Hiring for Corporate Workforce

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-is-pausing-hiring-for-corporate-workforce-11667494267

by seibelj • 4 years ago

71 47 4 years ago

Man, it sure seems like the fed announcement yesterday spooked a lot of tech companies, eh? The thing I don't get is that the federal funds rate was also being raised in the mid 2010s, yet there was no corporate freakouts: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS

Is the root cause of this really just overhiring during the pandemic? Or is there something else at play here?

MuffinFlavored12• 4 years ago

How much more pain do you think the S&P500 is in for over the next 12-24 months given the current "macro" landscape?

If tech companies miss earnings again when they report for Q4, do they have another 10-20% drop left in them again?

denimnerd423• 4 years ago

we dropped 20% just on interest rates.

i'm counting for at least another 20% across the board when earnings miss everywhere.

adam_arthur4• 4 years ago

Next years S&P earnings around 200, with a 13x multiple at a bear market panic sell off bottom would put us at 2600. 15x at 3000

Pretty realistic if the recession gets bad.

Current estimates for the S&P predict earnings growth even though there’s a very clear recession on the horizon, likely deep.

Anyway, lots of cheap stocks out there now if you avoid the index. Still too many absurdly overvalued constituents like Chipotle and Costco (40-50x trailing PE, just why)

mint2• 4 years ago

My speculation from a non-financial expert view might be that as an average investor deciding where to put money, Amazon stock doesn’t seem like a good bet when there’s very low risk easy ways to get at least 4.5%. Maybe they are working on a way to show investors why they’d be a better investment.

This is speculation, so would love any corrections or counter points.

MuffinFlavored12• 4 years ago

Amazon stock doesn’t seem like a good bet

read enough doomsday social media material and you'll be convinced you should lock your money into treasuries at 4% instead of equities all together (any stock, including index/mutual funds)

nly• 4 years ago

When was the last time Amazon issued new shares to raise funds?

The stock market is a secondary market. You or me buying shares doesn't effect Amazon at all. They don't get a penny of your money when you buy shares

theCrowing• 4 years ago

I believe a lot of corps got spooked when the first announcement were made and they started to look into their labor pools and saw that they are highly inefficient. If your products are mostly software based it's easy to scale back if you do production or engineering (other than software) it's not that's why you see companies like Apple or Tesla not scaling back as much as the rest.

MuffinFlavored12• 4 years ago

saw that they are highly inefficient.

source?

selfmodruntime• 4 years ago

I'm not thrilled to be in the unfortunate position of finishing my degree early next year. Good luck to all new job seekers if hiring freezes and layoffs continue at the current pace.

emodendroket2• 4 years ago

Hang in there. I graduated in 2010 and not set up with a CS degree but I found my way eventually. And as rough as the market looks, people are still hiring... you may not be able to get into a top tier employer right away but I think your odds of finding employment of some kind are still good.

happyopossum• 4 years ago

The thing I don't get is that the federal funds rate was also being raised in the mid 2010s, yet there was no corporate freakouts

Look at the chart you linked to - the fed raised rates from effectively 0 to ~2.4% over 3+ years from 2016-2019. That has absolutely nothing in common with what's happening right now, where the fed went from 0.3 in April to ~3% today.

adam_arthur4• 4 years ago

Starting valuations were much higher this time, and the rate increases were significantly faster.

It’s actually the fastest fed tightening ever, from a percentage change perspective.

Weren’t many 100x sales companies in 2015. Even after the recent carnage there are still many 10-40x sales companies, which is pretty much unjustifiable with a 4.5% risk free rate

MuffinFlavored12• 4 years ago

Even after the recent carnage there are still many 10-40x sales companies, which is pretty much unjustifiable with a 4.5% risk free rate

so you are saying from a valuation perspective, we have more room to fall?

scubbo3• 4 years ago

Andy and S-team decided this week to pause on new incremental hires
We still intend to hire a meaningful number of people in 2023

Am I missing something, or are these contradictory?

joshribakoff• 4 years ago

Sounds like they won’t be passively backfilling, but will still actively recruit for select projects.

MuffinFlavored12• 4 years ago

which sounds bad if you are on a team with somebody who quits/gets fired/gets laid off

scubbo3• 4 years ago

Huh. That's almost the opposite of what I understood - "new incremental hires" sounds like active recruiting, but I could see "passive recruiting" falling outside that heading.

Who knows? It's HR PR, it means whatever they want it to mean.

fnordpiglet• 4 years ago

I read this to mean “hiring freeze for a bit but resume soon”

gumby• 4 years ago

What is "corporate workforce"? I assume it does not include hourly (warehouse) staff. But AWS? With 75% of corporate profits and high growth I wouldn't imagine they'd want to skimp there.

e-_pusher• 4 years ago

Meaning no warehouse workers

emodendroket2• 4 years ago

Nope, that's frozen too.

blurbleblurble• 4 years ago

I had an interview yesterday somewhere where they said they were really excited to move me forward, only to find out today that they're putting the position on hold :(

robswc• 4 years ago

Yea, that really sucks, sorry to hear that :/

You never have a job until you're in the chair, sitting down coding... or at least that's my bar lol.

Andrex• 4 years ago

Over the past two years I've gotten regular AWS recruitment emails, in fact for the last few months it's been every two weeks (from different people each time!) I responded that I had left tech, but if Amazon Studios was interested in an unrepped screenwriter I could be the guy. :P Some responded positively initially, though none followed up past the first reply.

I'll miss responding to those for a while.

Amazon Is Pausing Hiring for Corporate Workforce

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