Big Tech Doesn't Want You Anymore

big Tech is slashing hundreds of thousands of jobs and blaming artificial intelligence but there may be more to the story than that Intel just announced 15,000 layoffs yesterday causing their stock price to plunge big Tech who for over a decade provided all sorts of employee perks May no longer be the dream place to work in 2009 a friend of mine who had quit his job in Investment Banking joked that in the wake of the financial crisis being an investment banker was like being an airline stewardess the job used to be glamorous and well paid and now it was neither after the financial crisis central banks around the world slashed interest rates to near zero which was bad for banks but good for startups and the tech industry according to the St Louis fed over the 5 years after the financial crisis jobs in the tech sector expanded by more than 20% compared to 11 % job growth in the overall US economy Tech sector wages which were already high grew at roughly 5% per year over the same period it became the place to be while other businesses offered employees benefits like pensions and Health Care Tech firms attracted staff by offering perks like free food offices that looked like playgrounds nap pods the ability to bring your pet to work on-site massages meditation rooms office Jam sessions at Spotify and something called disco yoga Google and Facebook offered employees a free laundry service which is only so much of a perk when their employees mostly wear shorts and t-shirts I don't know maybe the laundry service went to their homes and picked up their dirty laundry from their bedroom floors that's probably how it worked to seem relatable Tech workers began posting Day in the Life videos on social media mostly showing themselves playing pingpong and eating berries at work hey guys welcome to a day of my life as a 26-year-old working in teken Manhattan so I wake up at 5:00 a.m. and I go to Equinox and I get in the cab and head to the office the subway is really scary since there are tons of lower class people who don't work in Tech so I take the cab everywhere now in 2020 the global pandemic transformed how people lived worked educated their children and spent their free time the world ...