Here to help, but not to be helped.
Last week, Best Buy laid off Geek Squad employees en masse, coincidentally, before announcing its new generative artificial intelligence assistant designed to provide customers with a “self-service” experience in just a few days.
“Our management called individually and stated that we were being fired for the simple reason that the company could not afford to pay us more or less,” fired employee. told 404 Media. “It was extremely fast and destructive.”
The laid-off employees told the publication that the company told them there would be a “work-from-home event” the next day. This “event” was layoffs.
Warning
IN earnings call Along with investors in February, Best Buy CEO Corey Barry promised “operational efficiency and effectiveness,” adding that the company would focus on “our Geek Squad repair operations and our customer service expertise.”
Wall Street reacted positively. Best stock buy added 0.67% on Monday, April 8, after 404 Media announced the layoffs on Friday.
However, the mood on the Geek Squad subreddit (hardly a scientific sample, but an indicator of sentiment) was gloomy. “This must be one of the worst companies to work for,” one user commented. “Geek Squad is a sinking ship” another one published.
Equipment
The layoffs come as employment in the technology sector fell by a quarter. Unemployment in the sector came across in February to 3.5%, but fell to 3% in March. And like morning beer reported in JanuaryThe year began with a wave of layoffs at companies such as Google, Apple and Amazon.
According to Layoff.fyitech job tracker, as of this writing, 240 tech companies have laid off more than 58,800 workers in 2024.
A fired Geek Squad employee compared Best Buy’s job cuts to the popular superhero movie franchise.
“Similar to what Thanos did in the Marvel films, the company has been known to continually cut departments and services in half,” said a former 404 Media employee. “The fact is that in many regions there are skeleton crews working.”
This report was originally published V IT brewing.