The brief Age of the Worker is over – employers have the upper hand again

theguardian.com:

I t seems that it was only yesterday that the media was filled with stories about workers calling the shots. There were the work-from-homers who refused to come back to the office after the pandemic was long over. There were the “quiet quitters” who proudly – and publicly – admitted that, even though they were collecting a paycheck from their employer they weren’t doing much at all during the day except looking for another job. And then there’s the group of workers who were advocating for “bare minimum Mondays” because apparently, a five-day workweek was just too much to bear.

During the past few years, we’ve heard employees publicly demand unlimited paid time off, four-day workweeks, wellness sabbaticals, gigantic bonuses to switch jobs and even “pawternity leave” – getting time off when you adopt a puppy. Facing labor shortages, customer demands and supply chain headaches, most employers caved. The Age of the Worker blossomed.

That age is at its sunset. The economy has slowed, costs have risen and capital is drying up. Companies are now being forced to do what they need to do to maintain profits and please their shareholders. And that something is always the same: cut some heads.

In just the past few months Google’s parent Alphabet cut 12,000 jobs, Salesforce cut 10% of its global staff, Amazon eliminated 27,000 workers, Disney got rid of 7,000 people and Accenture terminated 19,000. Accounting firm E&Y reduced workers by 3,000, FedEx announced that 10% of its global workforce are being shipped out, Dow lost 2,000 people and 3M fired 8,500 workers. And these are just the big companies making the news. Lyft fired 1,000 workers and ordered the remaining ones back to the office. There are countless other examples of