2023年经济学人 科技行业裁掉的人都去哪里了?（在线收听）

商业版块

Technology

科技行业

The sack of Silicon Valley

硅谷裁员潮

Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?

科技行业裁掉的人都去哪里了？

To understand the shift in tone that has taken place in Silicon Valley in recent months, look no further than Mark Zuckerberg's declaration in February that 2023 would be the "year of efficiency".

要了解最近几个月硅谷发生的气氛转变，只需看看马克·扎克伯格在2月份的宣言：2023年将是"效率之年"。

It is hardly the kind of language to set the pulse racing -- unless you are an employee on the receiving end of it.

这算不上那种让人心跳加速的语言-- 除非你是受此影响的一名员工。

On March 14th Meta, the tech giant Mr Zuckerberg runs, announced it would fire 10,000 staff—on top of the 11,000 it laid off last November.

3月14日，扎克伯格掌管的科技巨头Meta宣布，将在去年11月裁员1.1万人的基础上再裁员1万人。

Meta is not alone.

Meta并非孤例。

On March 20th Amazon, another tech behemoth, said it would cut a further 9,000 corporate employees, having already sacked 18,000 white-collar types.

3月20日，另一家科技巨头亚马逊宣布将再裁员9000人，此前该公司已经解雇了1.8万名白领员工。

So far this year American tech firms have announced 118,000 sackings, according to Crunchbase, a data provider, adding to the 140,000 jobs cut last year.

根据数据供应商Crunchbase，今年到目前为止，美国科技公司已经宣布裁员11.8万人，而去年已裁员14万人。

Investors have cheered tech's new-found cost-consciousness.

投资者为科技公司新养成的成本意识而欢呼。

The technology-heavy NASDAQ index is up by 17% from its recent low point in late December.

以科技股为主的纳斯达克指数较去年12月底的近期低点上涨了17%。

The companies are hearing the market's message loud and clear.

各家公司正听到市场发出的响亮而清晰的信息。

On March 24th the chief operating officer of Salesforce, a business-software firm, hinted that the company would soon add to the 8,000 lay-offs it announced in January.

3月24日，商业软件公司Salesforce的首席运营官暗示，该公司将很快在1月份宣布裁员8000人的基础上再增加裁员人数。

They have a way to go: firings since the start of 2022 represent only 6% of the American tech industry's workforce.

裁员还不止于此：自2022年初以来的裁员人数只占美国科技行业劳动力的6%。

Because tech companies continued to hire throughout 2022, lay-offs have only just begun to reduce total industry employment.

由于科技公司在整个2022年都在继续招聘，裁员造成的整个行业的就业人数减少才刚刚开始。

By comparison, between the peak of the dotcom boom at the start of the 2000s and its nadir at the end of 2003, America's overall tech workforce declined by 23%, or 685,000 jobs.

相比之下，互联网繁荣在本世纪初达到顶峰，在2003年末落入最低点，在此期间，美国科技行业总体劳动力减少了23%，即68.5万个工作岗位。

Still, the recent lay-offs have already been widespread and deep enough to warrant two questions.

尽管如此，最近的裁员范围之广和程度之深已经让人有必要提出两个问题。

First, who is getting the chop?

第一，谁被裁掉了？

And second, where are the laid-off workers going?

第二，被裁掉的员工去了哪里？

So far techies themselves have been mostly spared, observes Tim Herbert of the Computing Technology Industry Association, a trade body.

行业组织"计算技术行业协会"的蒂姆·赫伯特表示，到目前为止，技术人员本身基本上没有受到影响。

Instead, the axe has fallen mainly on business functions such as sales and recruitment.

相反，裁员的利刃主要落在销售和招聘等商业职能部门上。

These had grown steadily as a share of technology-industry employment in recent years, a telltale sign of bloat.

近年来，这些部门占科技行业就业人员的比例一直在稳步增长，这是一个很能说明问题的膨胀迹象。

Between the depths of the pandemic in the spring of 2020 and peak employment at the start of 2023, the tech sector added around 1m workers.

在疫情最严重的2020年春季和2023年初的就业高峰期之间，科技行业新增了约100万名员工。

Simply enlisting such numbers required hiring plenty of recruiters; as a headhunting rule of thumb, one recruiter can hire 25 new employees a year.

仅仅是招募这么多的人就需要雇佣大量的招聘人员，根据猎头的经验法则，一名招聘人员每年可以招聘25名新员工。

Many of those same recruiters may now be surplus to requirements.

这些招聘人员中的许多人现在可能已经供过于求了。

But the specialists are not immune to the efficiency drive.

但技术专家们也不能幸免于追求效率的运动。

As part of its lay-offs, Meta will restructure its tech functions in April.

作为裁员行动的一部分，Meta将在4月份重组其技术职能。

Releasing talented tech workers back into the wild could be a boon for other sectors wrestling with digital reinvention.

把有才干的技术人员放出去，对其他正奋力实现数字化改造的行业来说，可能是一件好事。

For years unsexy industries like industrial goods have struggled to compete with the tech industry for talent.

多年来，工业品等平淡无奇的行业一直在竭力与科技行业争夺人才。

Now they are pouncing.

现在，他们开始纵身猛扑了。

John Deere, an American tractor-maker, has been snapping up fired tech workers to help it make smarter farm machinery.

美国拖拉机制造商约翰迪尔一直在争抢被解雇的科技员工，以帮助其制造更智能的农业机械。

Last year the firm opened an office in Austin, a thriving tech hub in Texas.

去年，该公司在得克萨斯州蓬勃发展的科技中心奥斯汀开设了一个办事处。

Carmakers, increasingly focused on software, are also hungry for technologists.

越来越专注于软件的汽车制造商也对技术人才求贤若渴。

So are banks, health insurers and retailers.

银行、健康保险公司和零售商也是如此。

Some of the laid-off techies are helping fuel a new generation of startups.

一些被裁的技术人员正在为新一代初创企业提供动力。

Applications in January to Y Combinator, a startup school in Silicon Valley, were up five-fold on the previous year.

今年1月，硅谷创业孵化机构Y Combinator的申请数量比前一年增加了五倍。

Excitement is particularly strong in the buzzy field of ChatGPT-like "generative" artificial intelligence (AI), which uses complex algorithms and oodles of data to produce everything from essays to artworks -- so much so that even big tech continues to hire enthusiastically in the area.

在类似ChatGPT的"生成式"人工智能热门领域，兴奋的情绪尤其高涨，这种人工智能使用复杂的算法和海量的数据来生成从文章到艺术作品的一切东西，以至于大型科技公司也在继续热情地招聘该领域的人才。

Optimists hope that this technology will, like the smartphone before it, unlock a new wave of creative destruction, as AI entrepreneurs conjure up a variety of clever applications.

乐观主义者希望，随着人工智能创业者创造出各种神奇聪明的应用程序，这项技术会像之前的智能手机一样，开启新一轮的创造性破坏。

The new AIs may in time mean even less need for, say, human marketers.

假以时日，新的人工智能可能意味着对人类营销人员的需求变得更低。

But they could, like other breakthroughs before them, create entirely new job categories -- not least in the technology industry itself.

但它们也可以像之前的其他突破一样，创造出全新的工作类别 -- 尤其是在科技行业本身。