Every mass layoff article posted on HN (Microsoft, Google, Meta, etc) had people posting comments showing the staff counts sometimes doubled in size in a few years prior then reduced by 1/5th (or less) of the pre-growth number via a layoff. A bubble would typically cannibalized all the growth, not a small subset.
I can see how an overeager company who bought into their short term growth numbers as long term realities might overhire during unexpected growth when you don't really know what the upper limit is.
A short term (relative) explosion in demand growth can put businesses in a difficult spot where they can't handle the growth presently and they don't know if the 10% increase will turn into 20%. Hiring is a longer term investment you can't just turn on/off since on-boarding and training is a big investment, and humans are involved, so there's a fundamental timeline disconnect.
There's also the flood of capital from the public markets. Even before COVID tech stocks increased quite a bit.
This is pretty different than a "bubble" which is a completely fake boom that explodes 100% then falls back to zero when people realize it's bullshit. This is more like a boom that goes from +20% to +10%. Which yes still ultimately left a sizeable group in the crosshairs.
Finally someone who isn’t over eager to catastrophically moralize the situation instead of being level headed.
I was a 9 year fang veteran whose pay was grown 70% without my input over Covid. Everyone hired except me who felt this would cool. I tried to stay level headed and build a money making division. I succeeded. And was laid off for my efforts.
So I hope the people who like telling people like me we were just dumb idiots overhyping ourselves never get a taste of how things really work.
I don't know the specifics but think it is distinct, since there's a pool of labor that people go in and out of rather than through a sequence of steps. Bullwhip might describe connecting labor to education, though.
I can see how an overeager company who bought into their short term growth numbers as long term realities might overhire during unexpected growth when you don't really know what the upper limit is.
A short term (relative) explosion in demand growth can put businesses in a difficult spot where they can't handle the growth presently and they don't know if the 10% increase will turn into 20%. Hiring is a longer term investment you can't just turn on/off since on-boarding and training is a big investment, and humans are involved, so there's a fundamental timeline disconnect.
There's also the flood of capital from the public markets. Even before COVID tech stocks increased quite a bit.
This is pretty different than a "bubble" which is a completely fake boom that explodes 100% then falls back to zero when people realize it's bullshit. This is more like a boom that goes from +20% to +10%. Which yes still ultimately left a sizeable group in the crosshairs.