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The sack of Silicon Valley
硅谷裁員潮
Where have all the laid-off tech workers gone?
科技行業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".
要了解最近幾個月硅谷發生的氣氛轉變，只需看看馬克·扎克伯格在2月份的宣言：2023年將是"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.
這算不上那種讓人心跳加速的語言-- 除非你是受此影響的一名員工。
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頭Meta宣布，將在去年11月裁員1.1萬人的基礎上再裁員1萬人。
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，另一家科技巨頭亞馬遜宣布將再裁員9000人，此前該公司已經解雇了1.8萬名白領員工。
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.
根據數據供應商Crunchbase，今年到目前為止，美國科技公司已經宣布裁員11.8萬人，而去年已裁員14萬人。
Investors have cheered tech's new-found cost-consciousness.
投資者為科技公司新養成的成本意識而歡呼。
The technology-heavy NASDAQ index is up by 17% from its recent low point in late December.
以科技股為主的納斯達克指數較去年12月底的近期低點上漲了17%。
The companies are hearing the market's message loud and clear.
各家公司正聽到市場發出的響亮而清晰的信息。
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，商業軟件公司Salesforce的首席運營官暗示，該公司將很快在1月份宣布裁員8000人的基礎上再增加裁員人數。
They have a way to go: firings since the start of 2022 represent only 6% of the American tech industry's workforce.
裁員還不止于此：自2022年初以來的裁員人數只占美國科技行業勞動力的6%。
Because tech companies continued to hire throughout 2022, lay-offs have only just begun to reduce total industry employment.
由于科技公司在整個2022年都在繼續招聘，裁員造成的整個行業的就業人數減少才剛剛開始。
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，互聯網繁榮在本世紀初達到頂峰，在2003年末落入最低點，在此期間，美國科技行業總體勞動力減少了23%，即68.5萬個工作崗位。
Still, the recent lay-offs have already been widespread and deep enough to warrant two questions.
盡管如此，最近的裁員范圍之廣和程度之深已經讓人有必要提出兩個問題。
First, who is getting the chop?
第一，誰被裁掉了？
And second, where are the laid-off workers going?
第二，被裁掉的員工去了哪里？
So far techies themselves have been mostly spared, observes Tim Herbert of the Computing Technology Industry Association, a trade body.
行業組織"計算技術行業協會"的蒂姆·赫伯特表示，到目前為止，技術人員本身基本上沒有受到影響。
Instead, the axe has fallen mainly on business functions such as sales and recruitment.
相反，裁員的利刃主要落在銷售和招聘等商業職能部門上。
These had grown steadily as a share of technology-industry employment in recent years, a telltale sign of bloat.
近年來，這些部門占科技行業就業人員的比例一直在穩步增長，這是一個很能說明問題的膨脹跡象。
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.
在疫情最嚴重的2020年春季和2023年初的就業高峰期之間，科技行業新增了約100萬名員工。
Simply enlisting such numbers required hiring plenty of recruiters; as a headhunting rule of thumb, one recruiter can hire 25 new employees a year.
僅僅是招募這么多的人就需要雇傭大量的招聘人員，根據獵頭的經驗法則，一名招聘人員每年可以招聘25名新員工。
Many of those same recruiters may now be surplus to requirements.
這些招聘人員中的許多人現在可能已經供過于求了。
But the specialists are not immune to the efficiency drive.
但技術專家們也不能幸免于追求效率的運動。
As part of its lay-offs, Meta will restructure its tech functions in April.
作為裁員行動的一部分，Meta將在4月份重組其技術職能。
Releasing talented tech workers back into the wild could be a boon for other sectors wrestling with digital reinvention.
把有才干的技術人員放出去，對其他正奮力實現數字化改造的行業來說，可能是一件好事。
For years unsexy industries like industrial goods have struggled to compete with the tech industry for talent.
多年來，工業品等平淡無奇的行業一直在竭力與科技行業爭奪人才。
Now they are pouncing.
現在，他們開始縱身猛撲了。
John Deere, an American tractor-maker, has been snapping up fired tech workers to help it make smarter farm machinery.
美國拖拉機制造商約翰迪爾一直在爭搶被解雇的科技員工，以幫助其制造更智能的農業機械。
Last year the firm opened an office in Austin, a thriving tech hub in Texas.
去年，該公司在得克薩斯州蓬勃發展的科技中心奧斯汀開設了一個辦事處。
Carmakers, increasingly focused on software, are also hungry for technologists.
越來越專注于軟件的汽車制造商也對技術人才求賢若渴。
So are banks, health insurers and retailers.
銀行、健康保險公司和零售商也是如此。
Some of the laid-off techies are helping fuel a new generation of startups.
一些被裁的技術人員正在為新一代初創企業提供動力。
Applications in January to Y Combinator, a startup school in Silicon Valley, were up five-fold on the previous year.
今年1月，硅谷創業孵化機構Y Combinator的申請數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.
在類似ChatGPT的"生成式"人工智能熱門領域，興奮的情緒尤其高漲，這種人工智能使用復雜的算法和海量的數據來生成從文章到藝術作品的一切東西，以至于大型科技公司也在繼續熱情地招聘該領域的人才。
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.
樂觀主義者希望，隨著人工智能創業者創造出各種神奇聰明的應用程序，這項技術會像之前的智能手機一樣，開啟新一輪的創造性破壞。
The new AIs may in time mean even less need for, say, human marketers.
假以時日，新的人工智能可能意味著對人類營銷人員的需求變得更低。
But they could, like other breakthroughs before them, create entirely new job categories -- not least in the technology industry itself.
但它們也可以像之前的其他突破一樣，創造出全新的工作類別 -- 尤其是在科技行業本身。
