The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Layoffs in a “Booming” Economy

Feb 12, 2024

The tech industry is often viewed as providing stable jobs. The wave of the future. But last year, tech companies laid off more than 260,000 workers, according to layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi. In January, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Discord, Salesforce, and eBay all made big job cuts. On February 4, PayPal said in a letter to workers that it would cut another 2,500 workers or about nine percent of its workforce.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, described it well: "That is the way the American capitalist system works. It’s ruthless when it gets down to striving for profitability and creating wealth."

To increase their profit margins, all bosses, regardless of the industry, lay workers off and make the remaining workers work faster or longer hours. Capitalists don’t care about workers’ job security.