As an Employee, You Are Disposable
Tags: opinion, career, discuss
Published: 2023-07-08 07:01:46

---
title: As an Employee, You Are Disposable
published: true
date: 2023-05-06 00:00:00 UTC
tags: opinion, career, discuss
canonical_url: https://nelson.cloud/as-an-employee-you-are-disposable/
---

The recent tech layoffs have shown that employees are disposable in the eyes of executives. This isn’t surprising though, and I’m definitely not the first person that has written about this. I just want to highlight the current situation.

![TrueUp tech layoff tracker](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/27374ag9dd4d3qy4uzkf.png)
_Source: [TrueUp: Tech Layoff Tracker](https://www.trueup.io/layoffs)_


It doesn’t matter if investor expectations are surpassed, layoffs can still take place.

![CNBC Shopfiy headline](https://nelson.cloud/employees_are_disposable/cnbc_shopify.png)
_Source: [CNBC: Shopify cuts 20% of its workforce; shares surge on earnings beat](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/04/shopify-cuts-20percent-of-its-workforce-shares-surge-on-earnings-beat.html)_

  

It’s somewhat understandable if a company is struggling financially and resorts to layoffs. However, there’s plenty of companies that are profitable and still lay off the people that earned the company those profits.

![Polygon Microsoft headline](https://nelson.cloud/employees_are_disposable/microsoft.png)
_Source: [Polygon: Microsoft mass layoffs reportedly impact Bethesda, Halo Infinite teams](https://www.polygon.com/23561210/microsoft-layoffs-xbox-bethesda-halo-infinite-343-industries)_


Many companies are not only profitable, but their executives continue to earn huge sums of money amidst layoffs.

![Ars Technica headline](https://nelson.cloud/employees_are_disposable/ars_google.png)
_Source: [Ars Technica: Googlers angry about CEO’s $226M pay after cuts in perks and 12,000 layoffs](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/googlers-angry-about-ceos-226m-pay-after-cuts-in-perks-and-12000-layoffs/)_


Aside from layoffs, employees may have their pay frozen even though company revenues are up. That’s what happened at Microsoft. Let’s not forget that Microsoft is a $2.5 trillion dollar company (at the time of this writing).

![Ars Technica headline](https://nelson.cloud/employees_are_disposable/microsoft_pay_freeze.png)
_Source: [Microsoft workers protest ’landmark year’ CEO memo following pay freeze](https://www.techradar.com/pro/microsoft-workers-protest-landmark-year-ceo-memo-following-pay-freeze)_

It doesn’t matter how much value you’ve delivered. It doesn’t matter how much impact you’ve had in a company. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been at a company. You are still disposable.

![Ars Technica headline](https://nelson.cloud/employees_are_disposable/jeremy_joslin.png)
_Source: [Jeremy Joslin (@jcj) on Twitter](https://twitter.com/jcj/status/1616482322278420481)_

  

I recently came across a blog post that is very relevant when understanding that the executives that earn 100x your pay can also lay you off at any moment: _[Maybe you should store passwords in plaintext](https://www.qword.net/2023/04/30/maybe-you-should-store-passwords-in-plaintext)._

  

It’s okay to like your job and employer. Just understand that, **as an employee, you are disposable**.