Bethany Crystal
@bethanymarz
I went down a bit of a rabbithole this morning comparing the tech industry layoffs from 2023-25 to the auto industry layoffs of 2005-2009 Some context: My dad was a careerist at Ford Motor Company for 30 years and basically could not recover from the layoffs in 2008 (because he never learned how to change jobs) Today, I'm noticing a similar favor of fear among friends who work at Big Tech companies, many of whom haven't had to think about a new job in 10+ years The thing that is striking to me in both cases is that these layoffs are disproportionately impacting people who chose security or stability over the riskier thing Which means that when these people re-enter the labor market (for the first time in years, if not decades), it's a harder re-calibration. I share more about this in today's post (some charts in casts below) https://hardmodefirst.xyz/what-todays-tech-layoffs-mean-for-the-modern-careerist
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Bethany Crystal
@bethanymarz
I did a little research and found that just 7 of the major auto industry companies were responsible for 166k layoffs during the Great Recession Compare that to today, where just 9 big tech companies have already displaced 170k people (and counting)
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Bethany Crystal
@bethanymarz
The pace is moving faster on tech displacements. At roughly 1,000 days since the first major layoffs, tech companies have cut 50% more jobs than automakers did before the 2009 crash.
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