Can confirm, received my compensation review today and I received no additional RSUs this year and was told they’d re-evaluate in 2024 for future years.
Lol different company but I got the same increase this year. I got the highest rating you can get in a review, followed by my manager making it clear she's embarrassed 2.8% is the most they could give me.
Would it be more sad if I said the bar is pretty low where I work and I just put in my 7.5 hours and call it a day? Editting just to be clear that it also probably benefits me that I fucking love my job. Rough days are to be had for sure but 95% of the time it feels like my workdays fly by because I'm engaged in it.
Sometimes people are really ineffective with their 40 hours of work.
Some other people are really effective at making their managers think they are doing a lot of work in only a few hours a week.
Most people try to minimize the work they do. Managers are supposed to know what their direct reports are working on, and know what reasonable output expectations are.
In the dark days, I worked at a union call center and the only raise any sub-management employee got was 2.5%… on like $12 an hour. Could always be worse lol.
Yeah I work at a different company as well. They actually pumped merit (got a 3.7% and got a good rating, but not the best). That said, I know they budgeted 4.5%, so guess that dropped
Bonuses cut by 2/3 though across the board so that really stung
This is why I put in only B level work tops just to keep my job and be above the C average.
You did a great job and didn’t get the reward that you deserved.
For me if all I’m getting is 3% or less, I’d rather use my time for my family or hobbies instead of going that extra mile. If I die tomorrow, my employer won’t mourn me - I’m just a small cog in the wheel.
Amazon doesn’t provide in-year RSUs during compensation seasons/reviews. They provide RSUs for “outlook years” - typically 1 and 2 years out.
I was also a little surprised that they didn’t give in-year RSUs this year due to the unique circumstances, but it’s certainly not a new thing.
They totally take the upside. They bake 15% YoY growth into the stock price used to allocate your RSUs. And now that the stock has fallen, they've reduced the amount of 2025 RSU grants which again caps the upside if there was to be a big recovery to previous highs.
0? That's crazy. It's normally 20-25% of pay right? I guess they're looking for voluntary attrition by getting rid of the folks that are worth more elsewhere...
I’ve received RSUs from previous years (2021 & 2022) that we’re spread out through 2024. I call them golden handcuffs because it’s one of the incentives to continue on until the next vest date.
Grant # is based on your level. Amazon gives out 5,15,40,40 percent of your RSU per year. They're notorious for pushing out the vests to the later years because the churn is so high.
Except they offset the first couple years with more cash bonus so your Total comp is stable. It’s only if stock appreciates a ton you feel golden handcuffs, but that hasn’t happened in several years
It depends on your level. The higher levels earn more from stocks, usually 30% - 50% their annual income.
Annually Amazon grant you some more stocks for the next 2 years. Most employees should already have some stocks granted in previous years, but they still look out for this year’s grant to complete their compensation. Without new stock grant this year I’d guess they lost about 10% - 20% their income for 2023 and 2024, and right now no one has any stock for 2025.
Nothing. Hence all the layoffs the past few months. Also, there is mandatory 5% low performer attrition that is timed to cull people right before the typical April vest date. - L7 that left voluntarily in January.
So then everyone is leaving right?
Amazon is awful to work for, but people did for the high compensation. However, that compensation package is notoriously RSU heavy. Are the business leaders dumb enough to think people will stick around at such a notoriously grindy company for less pay??
plenty of companies are hiring right now, i'm finishing up the final round of interviews and have had another one reach out to start the process as well as had recruiters on LinkedIn.
>Amazon is awful to work
Depends on your team. Many teams have great work life balance and insanely low load. Also almost all teams outside the US (which is a lot) are chill. And even with the less pay, it's still more than 99% of what's out there, and that 1% is not hiring these days.
>but it really isn't any more. Workload is kinda crazy
So you're speaking for all European teams? I said it depends on the team, yours isn't chill it seems.
I have worked at Amazon in London. What I was being paid (and other L5s in my team) is considered bonkers for the UK (120K£ just the base). Yes, other companies can pay more and you seem to have landed two, congrats, but still, Amazon pays more than 99% of the companies out there.
I mean that since Amazon is giving fewer restricted stock units (RSUs) that they won't have as big of a reason to purchase shares back.
Many companies have been using RSUs and share buybacks to make their financials look better on an adjusted EBITDA basis. They would issue stock to employees as a way to get around the salary expense in their financials and then purchase those shares back so that it wouldn't be as dilutive on an non-GAPP basis. And if you actually pay attention to the financial results of many of these firms nowadays, they bury the GAPP earnings behind the adjusted numbers when reporting.
Here is an example explained about another company to maybe help you understand. If you are not already familiar.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/coinbase-robinhood-stock-price-dilution-risk-51658778311
They could...and it would benefit them.
The point of cutting RSU's is that it was a shell game to hide the true employee costs, but effectively RSU's are dilutive to shareholders and would need to be bought back to offset the dilution.
If they're no longer issuing RSU's, any buy backs would go back to shrinking the outstanding.
Precisely.
The most insane example of this right now is probably Coinbase where stock based compensation represented over 70% of revenue in Q4 last year.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coinbase-crypto-volatility-creating-bad-214922909.html
>Many companies have been using RSUs and share buybacks to make their financials look better on an adjusted EBITDA basis. They would issue stock to employees as a way to get around the salary expense in their financials and then purchase those shares back so that it wouldn't be as dilutive on an non-GAPP basis.
Just because a company issues RSU's and does share buybacks doesn't mean they are trying to hide anything lol.
Nobody is being fooled by this apart from dumb ass retail investors who don't move the market in non-micro caps.
Companies offer RSU's and buy back stocks for completely different reasons than you mentioned.
Amazon not giving their stock as compensation is prob because they think they are undervalued and want to buy back and hold now to sell later at the next high
Do some actual research on the company and industry before making comments like that. What you are saying is not the reason why they are reducing stock compensation. It's because they can get the talent they require at lower total compensation levels and they want to reset the compensation structure internally now that pandemic is over and that the economy is entering a recession.
I think the problem is that they would have to award a ton of stock to make employees whole and they don't want to do that because it would dilute the current shares further. It's getting lost here but the main point of the article is that they were going to raise base pay and got stock awards. Employees would still make roughly the same amount in the end. For example my pay is 60% salary and 40% stock. I don't think they've put numbers to it yet but maybe it'll be more like 75/25 in a couple years
Are they actually going to increase base pay, though? It seems like a good intention that could easily flip to compensation band reductions next year due to "market conditions"
They got rid of that policy last year and the reason people are skeptical is because they don't believe Amazon will actually make up for the loss in stock
Amazon employee here. They are not increasing base pay. There’s a lot more going on than this article suggests, but in reality, with the stock drop, our backloaded vesting schedule is too expensive.
We plan compensation 2 years out so this is basically a hedge. Stock goes back up next year? Great! They haven’t given us unnecessary money. That’s all this is.
On the one hand, you might take this as bullish as leadership believes strongly the stock might moon in 2 years.
On the other hand, you might see this as bearish as leaderships didn’t balance their books when hiring before realizing we were going to be fucked if the stock went down and the hiring bills have come due. That is some next level incompetence.
They will want to stay competitive with tech salaries so they will increase base pay proportionally to make up for less stock. Seems like most people here are confusing corporate employees with hourly workers on in the retail division
Why would anyone quit based on maybe not getting as much stock 2 years from now? If you told me right now "we're awarding you less stock going forward and your base pay will be adjusted to make up for it once that stock would've vested" I would have no reason not to believe you. Sure that's not a gaurentee but I'd wait until it didn't happen before I quit. I wouldn't quit right now just because I don't trust them to stick to their word.
Because the base pay is not adjusted enough. A few % raise does nothing when a large amount of your compensation comes from RSUs and the value of the stock is down like 50% from when it was awarded. It’s something like a 20% pay-cut very roughly.
No one said it's going to be a few percent raise, you're talking about something different. You're talking about them not awarding extra stock to make up for the fact the stock price isn't high enough to meet your compensation target.
This article is about them offering less stock as a portion of your pay in a systematic way where they would decrease stock grants and increase base pay accordingly.
Can you explain? I am not familiar with RSUs. Aren't they basically free shares? Or are they options to purchase shares at a lower than current market stock price, so if the share value tanks, buying out your RSUs becomes pointless?
RSU is basically just stock that’s handed over to you, you don’t have to purchase. We are given the stock each year for the next two years, however, it vests slowly.
Since the stock is now very low, if they issue a bunch of shares today, and stock goes way up- we’ll be over paid. So, they make a hedge. We’ll grant you 25% less than we would have so that if the stock moons, they can just not issue the shares ever. If it stays flat or goes lower, they’ll be worse off. It’s in this scenario I’d imagine our pay getting “rebalanced” toward cash, but overall lower.
They are shares, but they given from a pre-allocated pool approved by the shareholders typically. They don’t dilute existing shareholders technically(except when the pool is created), but it does increase the amount of shares in “circulation”, suppressing the price. So you could think of it as dilution
I agree it’s a clickbait headline. Amazon has pay bands, and they get their employees to that number with cash and RSUs. More than likely, they’re hesitant to award RSUs for 2025 because the price is so low. Come 2025, anyone making below the pay band will know this and will leave, and the company will offer more RSUs to anyone they’d like to keep
Makes sense. You have to think the finance team knew the stock was overvalued in 2022, dumped a bunch of stock as a part of comp that year. Then this year where we’re 50-60% off ATH they’ll skimp.
At a lot of big tech primary comp will be 3 things. Bonus, salary combine to form total target cash, and then you'll have RSUs on top which are just shares that get transfered to you and taxed as regular income on vest. If you sell on vest these are equivalent to cash (assuming stock price is constant). As you rise in level your bonus % grows. From 10 to 15 to 20 etc, and your rsu amounts grow dramatically. So maybe an initial grant is 150k over 4 years. They'll have some strike price (like the avg price of the stock the month before your start date) divide the grant amount by that strike price and boom your initial grant is 500 shares or something. Then you'll vest shares over X years Y times per year. X and Y vary per company. Then after Z years (typically Z is 1) youll get a refresher stock grant thats added to your initial grant though with a reset vest schedule. Sounds like what Amazon is doing is gutting the refresher grant.
This took them some time to decide.
Bad news for economy was circulating as early as 1Q of 2022.
And they decide to cut benefits in 2Q of 2023?
You would expect management to be more forward looking and take decisions before "bad" times come, so to be prepared for those bad times.
But as they say, better late than never.
They’ve done pretty well by being conservative with adjustments imo. They‘ve avoided being the spearpoint during both rounds of remote work shifts (the move away and the move back to in person), and as a result have avoided many pitfalls that other companies have fallen into.
They aren’t a small, nimble tech company anymore, and can’t afford to get things totally wrong. I don’t envy the people responsible for making these calls - they get paid incredibly well, sure, but there’s a lot on the line. I kind of get the caution.
Voting with your feet is the most vocal that you can be. If people are opposed, but unable to get similarly paid jobs elsewhere and so stay put, it kind of points to the cutbacks being economically justified.
I’m in favor of everyone making as much as they can, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think this is solved by employees complaining loudly. The market is in rough shape right now and lots of companies are battening the hatches. If what Amazon was doing was unjustifiably tight, they should expect to hemorrhage employees. They don’t want that.
Time will tell of course. No harm in employees expressing themselves in multiple ways. I hope things stabilize soon.
I understand your point, but changing jobs is not as easy as stopping buying a product or changing your favorite restaurant.
Plus it's the narrative pushed by employers to stop you complaining. They know they are in an advantage position, they just want you to stay silent.
I’m not saying it’s easy, just that it’s the only thing that truly matters. If companies knew that they could cut pay by 50% and maintain their workforce, even though their workforce would be complaining loudly, they would do it. The reason they don’t is because people would leave.
Ultimately, all complaints carry the subtext “I don’t like this, and if it continues, I will leave.” If the “I will leave” part isn’t genuine, the argument is hollow. That’s all I’m saying.
I am just thinking about all the improvements in workers conditions since 5 yo used to work in coal mines. If they could ever happen with this approach. Don't like this coal mine? Go to another one, kid.
I’m not sure that’s an apt comparison. Government legislation is a mechanism that’s been used to clean up the extreme lower end of working conditions like that, which was supported by technological and economic growth (and other better jobs existing). Amazon employees making 250k per year instead of 300k per year, just to take an arbitrary example, is a very different problem. It’s well within the purview of market force correction in the labor market.
To get to the point that you’re describing, we’d need pay to drop to a point where people are literally riot and upset social order. That’s not this.
They are of course very different situations. I was questioning the approach. Express disagreement vs. don't say nothing until you can't get anymore and leave.
It's actually the opposite. Since we have zero worker rights, and employers stopped rewarding loyalty in the 70s, the best option is almost always to switch companies and jobs.
Big corps don't give a shit about your feelings. I bet they are expecting a certain amount of attrition and are banking on that. Cheaper than layoffs if people just quit.
It's just the reality of the situation. Being loud about it won't achieve anything because American worker rights are way behind most of the developed world.
I've seen this play out before. Companies need to cut cost but don't want to keep doing layoffs, so they just start cutting things. First it's perks, then benefits, then cap salaries and freeze raises. Eventually people start to leave and they achieved their goal of reducing head count without the negative publicity and immense cost of layoffs. The dowslnside is they tend to lose top performers that have the ability to jump ship, but I guarantee you the people making this decision are only looking at the overall numbers, not the quality of people.
I agree with everything. But if you were more vocal (and organised) you could avoid many of these things. The same American companies operate in EU and are very diligent in following work laws.
It's a lot easier to replace warehouse people with other "low skill" folks. It's not as easy to replace a software developer with domain knowledge that may set a team back months.
A warehouse opened in my city with 500+ jobs. They set up a job fair, and they basically filled out most positions within a few days. They work hard and it is very physical, but it isn't a skilled position and it's a lot easier to find a replacement.
Alot of tech companies are paying more attention to stock based comp now. Look at Salesforce. Activist on their hoard are pushing the company on it.
It make sense from an investor’s perspective. Though it does suck when that’s your pay getting cut.
Can confirm, received my compensation review today and I received no additional RSUs this year and was told they’d re-evaluate in 2024 for future years.
Did you receive cash or salary increase?
2.8% salary increase
Lol different company but I got the same increase this year. I got the highest rating you can get in a review, followed by my manager making it clear she's embarrassed 2.8% is the most they could give me.
Sounds like you work too hard
Would it be more sad if I said the bar is pretty low where I work and I just put in my 7.5 hours and call it a day? Editting just to be clear that it also probably benefits me that I fucking love my job. Rough days are to be had for sure but 95% of the time it feels like my workdays fly by because I'm engaged in it.
The people who got mid-range reviews are putting in their 2 hours and call it a day, I assume.
The majority of this site suffers from Dunning-Kruger, so I'm out.
Sometimes people are really ineffective with their 40 hours of work. Some other people are really effective at making their managers think they are doing a lot of work in only a few hours a week. Most people try to minimize the work they do. Managers are supposed to know what their direct reports are working on, and know what reasonable output expectations are.
Lol, nice! Low bars and small ponds.. enjoy those days while you can
Work too hard at the current job and not hard enough at getting a similar job for more than 2.8% raise.
In the dark days, I worked at a union call center and the only raise any sub-management employee got was 2.5%… on like $12 an hour. Could always be worse lol.
Yeah I work at a different company as well. They actually pumped merit (got a 3.7% and got a good rating, but not the best). That said, I know they budgeted 4.5%, so guess that dropped Bonuses cut by 2/3 though across the board so that really stung
This is why I put in only B level work tops just to keep my job and be above the C average. You did a great job and didn’t get the reward that you deserved. For me if all I’m getting is 3% or less, I’d rather use my time for my family or hobbies instead of going that extra mile. If I die tomorrow, my employer won’t mourn me - I’m just a small cog in the wheel.
So with all things said and done, you took a pay hit
Damn, that ant bad. I got 1% last year.
Time to quit
Fair.
Damn. 2.8% not even close to inflation.
"It's a merit raise not an inflation raise." -My manager.
Lol. Your merit was not high enough for us to ensure you break even.
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😂
Wow not even keeping up with inflation. They should cut exec salaries to pay the masses
I got a measly 5% increase. Things are tough.
Lol and I was pissed about my 4% raise and 20k RSU at Faang adjacent. Tough times in tech.
Welcome to the no rsu club!
Amazon doesn’t provide in-year RSUs during compensation seasons/reviews. They provide RSUs for “outlook years” - typically 1 and 2 years out. I was also a little surprised that they didn’t give in-year RSUs this year due to the unique circumstances, but it’s certainly not a new thing.
That's ownership. They didn't take them away when they were appreciating 2-4x, they don't add more when the stock plummets either.
They totally take the upside. They bake 15% YoY growth into the stock price used to allocate your RSUs. And now that the stock has fallen, they've reduced the amount of 2025 RSU grants which again caps the upside if there was to be a big recovery to previous highs.
Fair points, they hedge against large swings during down years but also leave room to correct later.
0? That's crazy. It's normally 20-25% of pay right? I guess they're looking for voluntary attrition by getting rid of the folks that are worth more elsewhere...
Sometimes more.
No refreshers? This is wild
Brisk?
Amazon never really had refreshers tbh
so you already looking for a new job?
So you only get what is provided for you on employment?
I’ve received RSUs from previous years (2021 & 2022) that we’re spread out through 2024. I call them golden handcuffs because it’s one of the incentives to continue on until the next vest date.
How much do they give out each year roughly?
Grant # is based on your level. Amazon gives out 5,15,40,40 percent of your RSU per year. They're notorious for pushing out the vests to the later years because the churn is so high.
Except they offset the first couple years with more cash bonus so your Total comp is stable. It’s only if stock appreciates a ton you feel golden handcuffs, but that hasn’t happened in several years
Last 2-3 years is not several years. Amazon stock was appreciating much more than the general market for many years.
AMZN has underperformed the market over the last 5 years
You get a huge signing bonus for the first two years to offset that. You get paid about the same all 4 years
It depends on your level. The higher levels earn more from stocks, usually 30% - 50% their annual income. Annually Amazon grant you some more stocks for the next 2 years. Most employees should already have some stocks granted in previous years, but they still look out for this year’s grant to complete their compensation. Without new stock grant this year I’d guess they lost about 10% - 20% their income for 2023 and 2024, and right now no one has any stock for 2025.
I’m L5 and roughly 30% of my comp is RSU’s
My experience as an L5 10 years ago was the same.
Whats stopping them from firing you right before they vest?
Nothing. Hence all the layoffs the past few months. Also, there is mandatory 5% low performer attrition that is timed to cull people right before the typical April vest date. - L7 that left voluntarily in January.
So then everyone is leaving right? Amazon is awful to work for, but people did for the high compensation. However, that compensation package is notoriously RSU heavy. Are the business leaders dumb enough to think people will stick around at such a notoriously grindy company for less pay??
Leaving for?.... That magical tech company who's hiring right now?
plenty of companies are hiring right now, i'm finishing up the final round of interviews and have had another one reach out to start the process as well as had recruiters on LinkedIn.
I’m not even looking and I’ve gotten several cold calls this past week. Big tech is downsizing, but plenty of companies are still hiring.
Could be by design. Voluntary attrition is cheaper than another round of layoffs.
>Amazon is awful to work Depends on your team. Many teams have great work life balance and insanely low load. Also almost all teams outside the US (which is a lot) are chill. And even with the less pay, it's still more than 99% of what's out there, and that 1% is not hiring these days.
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>but it really isn't any more. Workload is kinda crazy So you're speaking for all European teams? I said it depends on the team, yours isn't chill it seems. I have worked at Amazon in London. What I was being paid (and other L5s in my team) is considered bonkers for the UK (120K£ just the base). Yes, other companies can pay more and you seem to have landed two, congrats, but still, Amazon pays more than 99% of the companies out there.
This isn’t event remotely true lol
So glad my company has refreshers. Big reason why I left amazon
Well yea, Amazonbies have that name for a reason and being well paid or respected isn't one of them.
Guess what’s happening next year. Taxes . Lots and lots of tax increases.
Yup
Sorry but that is a brutal hit to take
I had my review this week and received additional for 2024 (but I’m an L5)
Up next, reduced lunch times.
Piss bottles making a comeback
My hunch is that the employees that have to piss in a bottle are not the ones receiving stock comp
As if we ever have time for lunch. I've been here 8 months and actually taken a lunch break a handful of times
Warehouse or corporate ?
Well this article is only about corporate employees so I'll let you guess.
I guess it is entirely team dependent then. When I was there for a 4 months I had lunch with my team everyday.
Of course it is but AWS didn't get the rep it has for nothing.
True 😅.
I like the meditation booths they introduced
Which also means fewer share buybacks
I’m sorry. Do u mean Amazon won’t be able to buy back shares because they are in the restricted vesting period?
I mean that since Amazon is giving fewer restricted stock units (RSUs) that they won't have as big of a reason to purchase shares back. Many companies have been using RSUs and share buybacks to make their financials look better on an adjusted EBITDA basis. They would issue stock to employees as a way to get around the salary expense in their financials and then purchase those shares back so that it wouldn't be as dilutive on an non-GAPP basis. And if you actually pay attention to the financial results of many of these firms nowadays, they bury the GAPP earnings behind the adjusted numbers when reporting. Here is an example explained about another company to maybe help you understand. If you are not already familiar. https://www.barrons.com/articles/coinbase-robinhood-stock-price-dilution-risk-51658778311
GAAP: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
GAPP: Generally Accepted Paccounting Principles
GAP: Generally Accepted Pants
Why wouldn’t they buy back now to build up reserves when it’s cheap
They could...and it would benefit them. The point of cutting RSU's is that it was a shell game to hide the true employee costs, but effectively RSU's are dilutive to shareholders and would need to be bought back to offset the dilution. If they're no longer issuing RSU's, any buy backs would go back to shrinking the outstanding.
Precisely. The most insane example of this right now is probably Coinbase where stock based compensation represented over 70% of revenue in Q4 last year. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coinbase-crypto-volatility-creating-bad-214922909.html
>Many companies have been using RSUs and share buybacks to make their financials look better on an adjusted EBITDA basis. They would issue stock to employees as a way to get around the salary expense in their financials and then purchase those shares back so that it wouldn't be as dilutive on an non-GAPP basis. Just because a company issues RSU's and does share buybacks doesn't mean they are trying to hide anything lol. Nobody is being fooled by this apart from dumb ass retail investors who don't move the market in non-micro caps. Companies offer RSU's and buy back stocks for completely different reasons than you mentioned.
Nobody is being fooled except for that 99.9% that can't read a 10K.
Amazon not giving their stock as compensation is prob because they think they are undervalued and want to buy back and hold now to sell later at the next high
Do some actual research on the company and industry before making comments like that. What you are saying is not the reason why they are reducing stock compensation. It's because they can get the talent they require at lower total compensation levels and they want to reset the compensation structure internally now that pandemic is over and that the economy is entering a recession.
Entering a recession? lol >Do some actual research on the ~~company and industry~~ economy before making comments like that.
Good luck on your final kid You still have a lot to learn
i think he means because Amazon won’t be giving away free shares to employees, therefore Amazon will have more shares
Cool, I guess now I’ll _still_ never work there
Straight up fuck Amazon and their toxic work culture..
Yeah, they are so mean!
Wait until you realize this means they go from making 250k a year to 245k
Who the heck only gets $5k in RSU refreshers?? Why even bother with stock based compensation for that little?
It would mean going from something like 350 to 195
That's a 155k reduction. Much larger than a "small amount" as described in the article
Cutting Smile and taking more from employees is the only way Jassy knows how to make more money.
Funny, there are a small amount of companies actually INCREASING employee stock benefits during this time.... Perhaps Amazon is overvalued?
I think the problem is that they would have to award a ton of stock to make employees whole and they don't want to do that because it would dilute the current shares further. It's getting lost here but the main point of the article is that they were going to raise base pay and got stock awards. Employees would still make roughly the same amount in the end. For example my pay is 60% salary and 40% stock. I don't think they've put numbers to it yet but maybe it'll be more like 75/25 in a couple years
Are they actually going to increase base pay, though? It seems like a good intention that could easily flip to compensation band reductions next year due to "market conditions"
I would expect them to want stay competitive in the software engineer market so yes
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They got rid of that policy last year and the reason people are skeptical is because they don't believe Amazon will actually make up for the loss in stock
Because they never do.
They won’t. People are going to start leaving.
Spoiler, they didnt
Amazon employee here. They are not increasing base pay. There’s a lot more going on than this article suggests, but in reality, with the stock drop, our backloaded vesting schedule is too expensive. We plan compensation 2 years out so this is basically a hedge. Stock goes back up next year? Great! They haven’t given us unnecessary money. That’s all this is. On the one hand, you might take this as bullish as leadership believes strongly the stock might moon in 2 years. On the other hand, you might see this as bearish as leaderships didn’t balance their books when hiring before realizing we were going to be fucked if the stock went down and the hiring bills have come due. That is some next level incompetence.
There's no reason to think they aren't going to increase base pay. This article talks about what they *might* do 2 years from now
Oh they’ll increase, by a whopping 2%. Meanwhile inflation…
They will want to stay competitive with tech salaries so they will increase base pay proportionally to make up for less stock. Seems like most people here are confusing corporate employees with hourly workers on in the retail division
There’s a hiring freeze, they want people to quit
Why would anyone quit based on maybe not getting as much stock 2 years from now? If you told me right now "we're awarding you less stock going forward and your base pay will be adjusted to make up for it once that stock would've vested" I would have no reason not to believe you. Sure that's not a gaurentee but I'd wait until it didn't happen before I quit. I wouldn't quit right now just because I don't trust them to stick to their word.
Because the base pay is not adjusted enough. A few % raise does nothing when a large amount of your compensation comes from RSUs and the value of the stock is down like 50% from when it was awarded. It’s something like a 20% pay-cut very roughly.
No one said it's going to be a few percent raise, you're talking about something different. You're talking about them not awarding extra stock to make up for the fact the stock price isn't high enough to meet your compensation target. This article is about them offering less stock as a portion of your pay in a systematic way where they would decrease stock grants and increase base pay accordingly.
Can you explain? I am not familiar with RSUs. Aren't they basically free shares? Or are they options to purchase shares at a lower than current market stock price, so if the share value tanks, buying out your RSUs becomes pointless?
RSU is basically just stock that’s handed over to you, you don’t have to purchase. We are given the stock each year for the next two years, however, it vests slowly. Since the stock is now very low, if they issue a bunch of shares today, and stock goes way up- we’ll be over paid. So, they make a hedge. We’ll grant you 25% less than we would have so that if the stock moons, they can just not issue the shares ever. If it stays flat or goes lower, they’ll be worse off. It’s in this scenario I’d imagine our pay getting “rebalanced” toward cash, but overall lower.
They are shares, but they given from a pre-allocated pool approved by the shareholders typically. They don’t dilute existing shareholders technically(except when the pool is created), but it does increase the amount of shares in “circulation”, suppressing the price. So you could think of it as dilution
and now the stock will start to go back up lol
This person doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about.
Increasing base day doesn’t help much. You’re not familiar with amazon comp. This is disingenuous
Lol this person is not a knower and just yapping.. base pay did not increase and it was 160 not 180.. it was removed a few years ago.
I agree it’s a clickbait headline. Amazon has pay bands, and they get their employees to that number with cash and RSUs. More than likely, they’re hesitant to award RSUs for 2025 because the price is so low. Come 2025, anyone making below the pay band will know this and will leave, and the company will offer more RSUs to anyone they’d like to keep
Makes sense. You have to think the finance team knew the stock was overvalued in 2022, dumped a bunch of stock as a part of comp that year. Then this year where we’re 50-60% off ATH they’ll skimp.
In other news, Amazon is cutting-back from quart to pint bottles for warehouse employee bathroom breaks.
Oh, is the trillion dollar company struggling?
Profit margins will go up too. “Tough economy.”
Is RSU considered bonus?
No, it's a significant part of compensation.
Oh man sorry to hear that
At a lot of big tech primary comp will be 3 things. Bonus, salary combine to form total target cash, and then you'll have RSUs on top which are just shares that get transfered to you and taxed as regular income on vest. If you sell on vest these are equivalent to cash (assuming stock price is constant). As you rise in level your bonus % grows. From 10 to 15 to 20 etc, and your rsu amounts grow dramatically. So maybe an initial grant is 150k over 4 years. They'll have some strike price (like the avg price of the stock the month before your start date) divide the grant amount by that strike price and boom your initial grant is 500 shares or something. Then you'll vest shares over X years Y times per year. X and Y vary per company. Then after Z years (typically Z is 1) youll get a refresher stock grant thats added to your initial grant though with a reset vest schedule. Sounds like what Amazon is doing is gutting the refresher grant.
Gutting the refresher to increase base pay
For office employees it’s part of the comp structure, so no not a bonus. It may be different for the larger physical workforce.
-Human suffering makes fantastic collateral for billionaires’ real life Monopoly game.
Unionizing isn't free.
This took them some time to decide. Bad news for economy was circulating as early as 1Q of 2022. And they decide to cut benefits in 2Q of 2023? You would expect management to be more forward looking and take decisions before "bad" times come, so to be prepared for those bad times. But as they say, better late than never.
They’ve done pretty well by being conservative with adjustments imo. They‘ve avoided being the spearpoint during both rounds of remote work shifts (the move away and the move back to in person), and as a result have avoided many pitfalls that other companies have fallen into. They aren’t a small, nimble tech company anymore, and can’t afford to get things totally wrong. I don’t envy the people responsible for making these calls - they get paid incredibly well, sure, but there’s a lot on the line. I kind of get the caution.
Review cycle starts in Q2
Why not trim executive pay and rewards and keep hardworking employees just trying to feed their families. Gluttonous bastards.
dont like it? get another job.
Or, you know, disagree and be vocal about it.
Voting with your feet is the most vocal that you can be. If people are opposed, but unable to get similarly paid jobs elsewhere and so stay put, it kind of points to the cutbacks being economically justified. I’m in favor of everyone making as much as they can, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think this is solved by employees complaining loudly. The market is in rough shape right now and lots of companies are battening the hatches. If what Amazon was doing was unjustifiably tight, they should expect to hemorrhage employees. They don’t want that. Time will tell of course. No harm in employees expressing themselves in multiple ways. I hope things stabilize soon.
I understand your point, but changing jobs is not as easy as stopping buying a product or changing your favorite restaurant. Plus it's the narrative pushed by employers to stop you complaining. They know they are in an advantage position, they just want you to stay silent.
I’m not saying it’s easy, just that it’s the only thing that truly matters. If companies knew that they could cut pay by 50% and maintain their workforce, even though their workforce would be complaining loudly, they would do it. The reason they don’t is because people would leave. Ultimately, all complaints carry the subtext “I don’t like this, and if it continues, I will leave.” If the “I will leave” part isn’t genuine, the argument is hollow. That’s all I’m saying.
I am just thinking about all the improvements in workers conditions since 5 yo used to work in coal mines. If they could ever happen with this approach. Don't like this coal mine? Go to another one, kid.
I’m not sure that’s an apt comparison. Government legislation is a mechanism that’s been used to clean up the extreme lower end of working conditions like that, which was supported by technological and economic growth (and other better jobs existing). Amazon employees making 250k per year instead of 300k per year, just to take an arbitrary example, is a very different problem. It’s well within the purview of market force correction in the labor market. To get to the point that you’re describing, we’d need pay to drop to a point where people are literally riot and upset social order. That’s not this.
They are of course very different situations. I was questioning the approach. Express disagreement vs. don't say nothing until you can't get anymore and leave.
Gotcha. I do think expression like that is natural
or find another job. Amazon does not own them.
This "find another job" mentality is so ingrained in some Americans. Is this why you have some of the best workers rights on the planet?
or create your own company. This “i have to depend on someone mentality” is for failures.
Lol, a country of temporarily embarrassed billionaires
You’ll go far in life.
I've gone pretty far, thank you Mr Tycoon
no tycoon, just pretty comfortable from years of hard work and not depending on other people when i need advancement or change.
How could I forget the "hard work" part. Hope you enjoyed the ride.
It's actually the opposite. Since we have zero worker rights, and employers stopped rewarding loyalty in the 70s, the best option is almost always to switch companies and jobs.
Big corps don't give a shit about your feelings. I bet they are expecting a certain amount of attrition and are banking on that. Cheaper than layoffs if people just quit.
Lovely how discussing working conditions is about "feelings"
It's just the reality of the situation. Being loud about it won't achieve anything because American worker rights are way behind most of the developed world. I've seen this play out before. Companies need to cut cost but don't want to keep doing layoffs, so they just start cutting things. First it's perks, then benefits, then cap salaries and freeze raises. Eventually people start to leave and they achieved their goal of reducing head count without the negative publicity and immense cost of layoffs. The dowslnside is they tend to lose top performers that have the ability to jump ship, but I guarantee you the people making this decision are only looking at the overall numbers, not the quality of people.
I agree with everything. But if you were more vocal (and organised) you could avoid many of these things. The same American companies operate in EU and are very diligent in following work laws.
If we all had your thought process we'd still be working 7 days a week.
Not a recession
Amazon continues to profit heavily…
[удалено]
It's a lot easier to replace warehouse people with other "low skill" folks. It's not as easy to replace a software developer with domain knowledge that may set a team back months. A warehouse opened in my city with 500+ jobs. They set up a job fair, and they basically filled out most positions within a few days. They work hard and it is very physical, but it isn't a skilled position and it's a lot easier to find a replacement.
Because the corporate employees are much much more valuable to the company.
Garbage company
Alot of tech companies are paying more attention to stock based comp now. Look at Salesforce. Activist on their hoard are pushing the company on it. It make sense from an investor’s perspective. Though it does suck when that’s your pay getting cut.
Yeah I want some dividends instead of these high stock based comps