CEO and upper management positions are paid too much for what they do.
AI
Diversity hire
Consumer spending
Free stuff for those that could be working.
School system

Watching Bloomberg this morning, lots of companies cutting workforce. Seems like we go through this every 15 years or so. The companies seem to think job cuts are the solution to profit.

Do you think jobs cuts are the solution or just an excuse for an overpaid CEO.
I worked in service repair until retirement, so my blue collar opinion may differ from fancy desk job employees.
I'm sure it's a combination of things that cause loss of profit in big business, does anything stand out?

Don't let jealousy for management cloud your thinking.
I imagine you may have had life experiences that may have shaped your opinion.
To your question - No, job cuts are not simply to fund a CEO salary.

Sure, I'm a little clouded on upper management only because they are the ones responsible for the layoffs, the amount of money they make to run the ship, so to speak. They should be accountable, instead of rewarded.

quote:

Do you think jobs cuts are the solution or just an excuse for an overpaid CEO.

Compared to historical data, CEOs are often paid higher currently than at previous times.

Having said that, jobs cuts are often necessary to save a business. So... I think it's a combination of the two in general, but circumstances will vary company to company.

AI can/will dramatically reshape office work.

A friend is in that space. (This is for a large entity), but he cut 55,000 man hours in the first year.

He’s confident he can refine it to cut 100k man hours/vastly more can be cut with reshaping.

A company will always need creation, and it will always need implementation. (Head and hands.)

The issue is, for anyone whose mind was shaped by a normal public school, they are now redundant/will be in 5 years.

They need to learn to be human, to be useful.

Sadly, this will mean some loss of quality. Dogs/horses are no longer nearly as well bred /trained on average. Furniture is of vastly lesser quality - as is housing.

But, it makes more sense to move to designs which can be simply automated/replaced than to fight a losing battle.

Tesla Ys are currently leasing so cheaply, that it may not make sense to buy a different car, for normal commuter use - my guess is that price will just continue to drop, as all the inputs keep dropping in cost, except basic metal cost.

Fascinating take.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Do you think jobs cuts are the solution or just an excuse for an overpaid CEO.

Compared to historical data, CEOs are often paid higher currently than at previous times.

So are skilled trades. The challenge in the trades will be how to develop new masters, once the typical tool holder has been replaced by automation/where to find someone sober enough to be a tradesman.

If you have the Blue Collar Blues you can always convert to being a Handyman, that way you don't have to hate anyone.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by smschulz:
If you have the Blue Collar Blues you can always convert to being a Handyman, that way you don't have to hate anyone.
End Quote.
Interesting that you seem to think I hate anyone. 40 years of a professional auto technician, very large and very small companies. Seems that maybe upper management is to blame for layoffs, given the low level of respect for the low lifes that do the actual work.
Management tends to think they are way above the best, that's fine with me as long as can prove it. The CEO's that are laying off their workforce screwed up somewhere. Now, the ones that come in and turn a company around and turn a profit could very well be worth the money.
Layoffs are bad, many things can cause this, if a company is failing, look at leadership, I think they are overpaid, just my opinion, but I sure as hell don't hate them.
If your going to make that kind of money to run a large company, be worth it.

the one line item that any company can directly control and have an immediate impact on the bottom line is payroll. You cant set fuel costs, insurance, market changes, only adjust for them, and it's raise the price or cut expenses.

AI certainly will take over for some operations, no differently than robotics changed manufacturing.

We all should have learned to code..

I don’t know how layoffs are, inherently, the fault of Managment.

Technology changes.

Sometimes, Managment might have over-hired/guessed wrong on the market, etc but sometimes, the market has shifted and buggy whips are no longer needed at the same volume.

quote:

Originally posted by rizzle:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by smschulz:
If you have the Blue Collar Blues you can always convert to being a Handyman, that way you don't have to hate anyone.
End Quote.
Interesting that you seem to think I hate anyone. 40 years of a professional auto technician, very large and very small companies. Seems that maybe upper management is to blame for layoffs, given the low level of respect for the low lifes that do the actual work.
Management tends to think they are way above the best, that's fine with me as long as can prove it. The CEO's that are laying off their workforce screwed up somewhere. Now, the ones that come in and turn a company around and turn a profit could very well be worth the money.
Layoffs are bad, many things can cause this, if a company is failing, look at leadership, I think they are overpaid, just my opinion, but I sure as hell don't hate them.
If your going to make that kind of money to run a large company, be worth it.

And... hiring shitty employees, that can take down a company, combined with all the other stuff you already said. The higher up in the company the less suffering. It's the law of the jungle. Shit truly rolls downhill. And they will always find a fall guy, no matter how productive or innocent, if you're "it" you're screwed. It's not right, it's just the law of the jungle.

CEOs are paid too much because the market for CEOs isn't really open. Yes, there are exceptions such as CEOs who founded their own company but the exceptions prove the rule.

You can look at how many have ever played basketball or football versus how many make it to the NNA and NFL. For the most part, it's natural ability, hard work, and maybe a little bit of luck. But in the end it's abilities and skills. To be a CEO requires a lot more than just skills and abilities, usually connections. I suppose the odds of becoming a corporate CEO versus the corporate worker bees is much smaller than gettig to the NFL or NBA.

As far as lay-offs, you certainly can't expect a CEO to lay himself off; he'll need to be replaced anyway by another CEO. Worker bees can be laid off and they can expect to move to another company or industry.

I've sat in division senior management meetings as support staff since I create the slide decks, have analyzed the figures, and pointed out items for the Division VP's attention. He meets with the Area VPs which are over sales regions. If they're not making the quarter's sales numbers, they better make the margin numbers, no exception. And the only way to make the numbers if the sales numbers are down is to cut costs. And being the sales organization's cost is mostly due to salespeople, making the margin means laying sales people off.

In the meeting, no mention of people are made. They're simply numbers just like how many numbers of products we have to push. It feels cut throat but that's the business world. They make sure they make the quarterly numbers for Wall Street and they make sure they pay out an ever increasing dividends.

Layoffs happen because workload changes. CEOs and managers aren’t reading crystal balls. Technology changes, you lose a contract, client changes his mind, you get undercut, regulations change, the market changes and kills a project, etc.

I was a manager at a factory and had to cut hours for every employee after the 08 housing crash.

I announced my cuts to the workers and got all sorts of grief.

When some wouldn’t calm down, I told them to point out which of their coworkers they wanted fired.

Eyes got big and they shut up…

I lost all bonuses and took a pay cut during that time.

Numbers don’t lie and it’s business.

So I have to ask, were you laid off?
I wonder what prompted the melancholy rant?

Retired at 62 after cabbage heart surgery, that was three years ago. Not really a rant, like I mentioned was watching Bloomberg, seems like all sorts of companies of different types laying off this year. Been through two layoffs over the years, was one in 08 along with many others at that time.
This seems different, why are they laying off? to cut costs? why not manage better, reducing the CEO pay would be one.
The amount they make they should have a crystal ball, they run the place, run it. I just can't seem to justify how much they make for what they do, when they fail most even get a severance package.
Was just wondering what's up with the layoffs, put up some random thoughts on my opinion. For those that work for companies, I wonder if they think their CEO is getting paid too much. It's easy to cut jobs to balance the budget, should be the last thing though, that's what CEO's do, in my opinion the ones that do not cut jobs are doing well.

It's not just CEOs, my company is ridiculously top heavy with management in general.

In order for the U.S. Economy to course correct, weak companies must be allowed to fail. Their assets sold at auction or acquired by other means. This is part of free economic cycles that have been transpiring as long as we have been a nation. There is a whole lot of ass pain yet to come because our government will not allow massive corporations to fail. They MUST be allowed to fail and immense pain felt including jobs lost. The continued manipulations of our markets and natural economic cycles will only end in our demise.

The next 10-20 years will prove that we are either the greatest nation ever to exist, or just a bunch of stupid people unwilling to do what is necessary to right our own ship.

I grew up in the 70's and know what job loss and pis poor economic decisions look like. I also remember the 1980's to now when people got Fat, Dumb, and Happy.

The best boss I ever had always said the most important decision he made was who he hired. For the most part he picked good ones, invested in us, and spent most of his time keeping upper management off of our backs so we could do our jobs. There were a few hiring mistakes during the years that I worked for him, but they weeded themselves out pretty quickly.

I've been a worker bee my whole career, in corporate, education, and government. I've worked for some good and some bad. If management can remember that their function is to facilitate and support what the line-level people are doing, things are going to go well. If you have a boss who is self-serving and all about leveraging his position for his own benefit at the cost of his employees, it's going to end badly. From what I've seen, it's a really hard job if you do it well, with a great deal of stress and personal risk, but if you get the right person in that position they're absolutely worth the paycheck.