Posted on 07/29/2025 9:40:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Big companies are getting smaller—and their CEOs want everyone to know it.
The careful, coded corporate language executives once used in describing staff cuts is giving way to blunt boasts about ever-shrinking workforces. Gone are the days when trimming head count signaled retrenchment or trouble. Bosses are showing off to Wall Street that they are embracing artificial intelligence and serious about becoming lean.
After all, it is no easy feat to cut head count for 20 consecutive quarters, an accomplishment Wells Fargo’s chief executive officer touted this month. The bank is using attrition “as our friend,” Charlie Scharf said on the bank’s quarterly earnings call as he told investors that its head count had fallen every quarter over the past five years—by a total of 23% over the period.
Loomis, the Swedish cash-handling company, said it is managing to grow while reducing the number of employees, while Union Pacific, the rail operator, said its labor productivity had reached a record quarterly high as its staff size shrank by 3%. Last week, Verizon’s CEO told investors that the company had been “very, very good” on head count.
Translation? “It’s going down all the time,” Verizon’s Hans Vestberg said.
The shift reflects a cooling labor market, in which bosses are gaining an ever-stronger upper hand, and a new mindset on how best to run a company. Pointing to startups that command millions of dollars in revenue with only a handful of employees, many executives see large workforces as an impediment, not an asset, according to management specialists. Some are taking their cues from companies such as Amazon.com, which recently told staff that AI would likely lead to a smaller workforce.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Now there is almost a “moral neutrality” to head-count reductions, said Zack Mukewa, head of capital markets and strategic advisory at the communications firm Sloane & Co.
“Being honest about cost and head count isn’t just allowed—it’s rewarded” by investors, Mukewa said.
Companies are used to discussing cuts, even human ones, in dollars-and-cents terms with investors. What is different is how more corporate bosses are recasting the head-count reductions as accomplishments that position their businesses for change, he said.
Its one thing to reduce head count, its another thing to brag about it.
If you’re a programmer with skills that equate to just copy/pasting scripts from the internet like you’re in code camp, AI might have your job soon. But if you’re the guy that’s heavy on design first for making complex systems, you’ll probably be fine.
They're also contracting everything out so they don't have to pay benefits.
It would be great to always know, or perceive, in the context of the workplace, if or when your connection to the root has been been cut off, or ended.
That despite your best intentions, you’ve just become the proverbial dead wood. Waiting to be pruned.
No text message alert system for that.
Ai doesn’t know the data
No executive has a right to a bonus.
More rotten fruit from the Jack Welch abomination.
“””No executive has a right to a bonus.”””.......in communist countries.
“ But if you’re the guy that’s heavy on design first for making complex systems, you’ll probably be fine.”
If you are customer facing, or where physical work is required, you are safe.
Same thought process that went into sending all manufacturing to China. CEO’s got big bonuses for short term gains.
Cutting workforces is never an issue in a dynamic economy. In the 1980s, companies shed workers left and right but unemployment remained low because new companies sprang up. I know losing a job is brutal and traumatic, but in the long run, it creates a strong economy.
Bovine Exhaust.
“...in communist countries”
You forgot Carly Fiorina’s quote that “No American has a right to a job.”
Now look at all the Dot-Not-Feathers taking over American jobs left and right, and at offshoring.
10, 20 years ago it was offshoring to Chinaa, India, and other “low cost regions”. Whatever it takes to impress Wall St. for another quarter. And to keep those bonuses coming, of course.
Common factor: zero effs given for the US-based worker.
BTT
They see employees as heavy luggage cutting into their profits.
If these greedy AH's, like the thousands of employers who hire millions of low wage illegals, could find a way to dump every employee in the country and we wouldn't see a penny in reduced prices/costs.
Just like the fast food crooks. They could fire all their "high cost" labor and automate everything, but you still wouldn't see a dime in savings.
I had forgotten about Carly altogether.
“”You forgot Carly Fiorina’s quote that “No American has a right to a job.”””
Who has a right to a job??
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