Quiet quitting vs loud layoffs: both sides getting their point across

“Quiet quitting” where workers seek a better work-life balance dominated the headlines as lockdowns eased. More recently tech companies began laying off thousands of people. Dr Ghaz Samandari at 9 Paths Development considers the human impact of both phenomena

 

Enter the search term “quiet quitting” in a browser, and you’ll be inundated with results.

 

288,000,000 in fact.

 

Much like Covid-19 swept the planet in 2020, quiet quitting has proven itself to have viral qualities too.

 

As lockdowns eased, hardly a day went by without a new headline blaring how workers were not outright quitting their jobs, but were certainly quitting the idea of delivering more than their job contracts stated.

 

In other words, no more going above and beyond.

 

Loud layoffs by the tech behemoths a short while later

Though “loud layoffs” is not a search term in circulation, it accurately describes the tech sector redundancies that began almost as soon as the clock struck the new year.

 

Headlines, once again, tracked the trend.

 

While layoffs have happened across the technology ecosystem, from startups upwards, it’s the global tech behemoths who have been driving the news cycle. Workforce reductions, in early 2023, have been driven by Zoom, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon and Google.

 

So far, the reasons cited for these layoffs have been the macroeconomic environment and the requirement for (continued) profitability.

 

Little mention has been made of the human impact.

 

And when we look at the tech layoff numbers for the first three months of this year, it’s clear the impact has indeed fallen on human beings.

 

●        January 2023: 84,714 employees laid off.

●        February 2023: 36,491 employees laid off.

●        March 2023: 37,109 employees laid off.

 

Innovation looks a lot like conventionality from this perspective

If we gazed into a word cloud for tech companies, we’d see the term “innovation” come up a lot. (Along with “disrupt”.)

 

In 2004, Google/Alphabet wrote in their Founders’ IPO letter “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.”

 

But, Google, and the other tech companies that have cut staff this year, are certainly acting in conventional ways.

The playbook of how the wider tech layoffs have happened have all included a mea culpa by the executive sitting right at the top. The language has been deliberate.

 

It has also kept the control of the narrative firmly in the hands of the big tech giants.

 

Spotify’s Daniel Ek, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai have all exclaimed that they take “full accountability” for the layoffs they’ve announced. Yet little to no consequence befalls their career, income or life.

 

During the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns, many tech companies, and most notably the global ones, hired aggressively to meet the demand, which rapidly increased overnight, for online services. The markets presented an opportunity.

 

It’s these hiring sprees that are now being “course corrected” (more tech speak) by layoffs.

 

This is as conventional as any other part of capitalism’s history; from this vantage point, tech giants seem as innovative as the US auto industry in the 1980s.

 

Big tech companies and their reputations

The tech layoffs, on the surface, are about recalibrating and addressing decisions made during the pandemic.

 

Yet, on closer inspection, there is more to the story.

 

A cultural about-face is happening across the world of work, but especially at large tech companies.

 

For years, the status of gaining employment at one of the global tech giants was the ultimate in career success. The media was filled with stories of the large salaries on offer, and the perks. Restaurants, free massages and gyms on site were just some of the extras on offer.

 

Now, in light of the layoffs, the tech giants are proclaiming the need for austerity and a tightening of the belts. There’s no difference here to the rest of the commercial world.

 

And, post 2020, much of the talent that in the past would have done anything to work at one of the tech biggies is now questioning whether a tech job is all it’s cracked up to be.

 

Quiet quitting is one of the clearest ways to impart this new view of tech companies.

 

Quiet quitting tells us workers are using their voice too

Although the pandemic threw the world of work into a state of flux, the transformation is far from over.

 

The tech behemoths are still powerful. Their ability to implement large-scale layoffs quickly, and get away with the cuts largely unscathed, shows just how powerful.

 

But workers are mobilising too.

 

And this is where true innovation lies.

 

While “quiet quitting” has been making headlines on a daily basis in the West, young people in China have been revolting against hustle culture for years. Facing challenges in rising unemployment, economic burnout, and a lack of overall life satisfaction, young people in China have been “lying flat” against hustle culture en masse since 2019.  “Quiet quitting” is not breaking news, it’s a rising global tide.

 

According to Gallup, quiet quitters make up 50% of the U.S. workforce right now, and this is especially true for younger workers.

 

With profits still at an all time high, are the layoffs necessary?

 

Or are they being used to bring workers to heel while maintaining the power and privilege of the few at the top?

 

The question may be open for now.

 

But workers are no doubt quietly letting their position be known.

 

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As the Founder of 9 Paths Development, Dr. Ghaz Samandari, PhD is a Health Behaviour Scientist, ICF-certified Integral Development coach and trauma-informed practitioner who has worked with communities of women, government leaders and a variety of organisations in over 30 different countries. She now helps technology companies embody humanitarian practices to create a better future for all.

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com