Microsoft lays off 10k due to biz being soft, holds expensive private Sting concert for top execs

[NullTuples]

According to The Wall Street Journal, Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, better known as Sting, was paid by Microsoft to entertain an "intimate gathering of 50 or so people, including the company's top executives" at the Swiss resort during the annual World Economic Forum. Attendees must have been Walking On The Moon.

Artists with the clout of 71-year-old Sting, who once led '80s rock band the Police, can fetch a fee of six to seven figures for an evening's work, and yet the next morning Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sent an SOS to the world saying that the company couldn't afford to pay 10,000 of its employees anymore.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/20/microsoft_sting_davos/

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

1. layoffs are hitting the Indian H1b Visa group hard

https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/topstories/laid-off-meta-and-twitter-indian-employees-on-h1b-visa-still-struggling-to-find-a-job/ar-AA16aFzF

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It has been a few months now and a new year, but laid off employees are still struggling to find new jobs given the macroeconomic conditions globally. Many have taken to the social media platform LinkedIn to find job prospects, but given the situation in the tech industry and the recession, impacted employees are having difficulties finding new jobs.

Many impacted Meta, Twitter, and other employees are seen sharing their stories on LinkedIn expecting to get a job opportunity. The H1B visa holders are under the most stress because they have a limited time of 60 days to find new jobs. For the unaware, if an H1B visa holder is terminated, they will have 60 days to find new jobs, and failing to do so the person will need to move back to their home country.

Impacted employees over the last few months have taken to LinkedIn to look for jobs. One of them is Neeraj Deshpande, who was a software engineer with Meta, who was laid off by Zuckerberg alongside 11,000 employees. "My heart goes out to everyone affected by these layoffs. It has been a tremendous journey with amazing set of highly talented individuals. Being on H1B visa, I am now actively looking for any software engineering opportunities ASAP," he wrote on LinkedIn after getting laid off.

Another employee laid off by Meta, Raju Kadam, who was working as a senior technical program manager at the firm, also shared that he was on an H1B visa and looking for a job immediately. "I am on H1-B visa and my clock to leave USA has started today. I am reaching out to all Metamates, connections, LinkedIn community to help me find a job in otherwise I have to leave USA with my kids. I have been in USA for 16 years and have seen 2008, 2015 (oil), 2020 downturns but never lost my job. My 2 sons (Arjun - superman, Yash -Chicken) are US citizens, and their lives will be impacted. I will do whatever in my power to give them best opportunity to succeed in USA. Hence, I need a new job in USA ASAP (sic)," he wrote on LinkedIn.

https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/topstories/laid-off-meta-and-twitter-indian-employees-on-h1b-visa-still-struggling-to-find-a-job/ar-AA16aFzF


According to the American Immigration Council, foreign-born employees account for nearly a quarter of the 10.8 million workers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. More than half this 2.5 million cohort -- many from the Indian subcontinent -- is in America on guest worker visas. When they are laid off, as has been happening in the tech world, their life is uprooted.

Of course, there will be a recovery. Jobs will return, eventually in even greater numbers as it happened with Boeing. But foreign guest workers do not have the liberty of gutting it out for months, much less years. The stringent conditions attached to visas such as H1b enjoins that if they lose their job, they have to find alternative work in 60 days from the time they are laid off -- failing which they will have to self-deport or risk being out of status. And not just any job mind you; it has to be one they are eligible for and for which no qualified American is available.

This two-month hell zone is what thousands of foreign guest workers in the tech world are going through right now – with little sympathy from any quarter given that American workers are hurting too from the layoffs. For many professions, this means jettisoning friends, neighbours, leases, mortgages, school admissions (if they have children) and shipping back to their home country in the hope they will be able to return some day to bankroll a profligate America that has benefited immeasurably from immigrant enterprise. For some, it also represents an opportunity – of bringing back home the learning and skill sets they absorbed in America. Many unicorns in China and India are founded by those who were disdained by the United States. In either case, it is America’s loss.

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/opinion/us-tech-layoffs-upending-life-of-foreign-guest-workers

[NullTuples]

2. That's why so many are willing to put up with near-indentured-servitude work environments.

[underpants]

3. Zuckerberg rented out an MMA event in the midst of layoffs.

It’s not a big enough umbrella so YOU need to get wet.

[Ron Green]

4. Boom-and-bust. This is what Capitalism does.

And yet we don’t hear that basic truth in the “news” media.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

5. Priorities: parties over peasants.