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reverius42today at 12:56 AM4 repliesview on HN

Based on that logic, layoffs should sometimes cause the stock of a company to go down, if the shareholders think those employees contributed more value than the company saves by laying them off.

In reality layoffs almost always cause the stock to go up. The market seems to think layoffs are an unalloyed good.


Replies

jurgenburgentoday at 7:13 AM

> Based on that logic, layoffs should sometimes cause the stock of a company to go down, if the shareholders think those employees contributed more value than the company saves by laying them off.

You are treating short-term stock market movements as a signal of how well the company is performing.

BobbyTables2today at 4:04 AM

It’s also odd as it screams a different problem too.

If the employees were advantageous, I agree laying them off should be a long term negative as you seem to suggest.

Kinda like cheering the warmth of a burning bed on a cold night.

If they were inefficient/ineffective then management is crappy for not dealing with the problem sooner.

Sure, companies are resilient. But the first year or two of lost competence from layoffs can be quite rough…

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tingletechtoday at 3:07 AM

you still seem to be conflating layoffs with firing someone where you have to train their replacement.

bryanrasmussentoday at 2:15 AM

there are numerous well known aphorisms about the irrationality of markets, so not sure why that should matter.