Google staring at another round of layoffs: Here's why 

Google staring at another round of layoffs: Here's why 

Written byAthik Saleh

Apr 13, 2023, 11:23 am

Google CEO Sundar Pichai hinted at more layoffs

The last few months have seen mass layoffs becoming a common occurrence. Some of the biggest tech companies in the world have been hit by the layoff season.A few, including Amazon and Meta, announced two rounds of layoffs. Now, Google might join the club.The possibility was hinted at by CEO Sundar Pichai during an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Why does this story matter?

• Tech companies have been struggling for a while. After a fruitful run during the pandemic, most are searching for a sustainable way to continue their growth.
• Google, one of the biggest companies in the world, is also looking for a way to drive its growth efficiently. However, it is a tough ask in an economy with several uncertainties.

Pichai did not rule out more layoffs

Is Google going to fire more employees? When asked whether the company has similar plans to that of Amazon and Meta, Pichai said the company is "prioritizing and moving people" to important areas.He did not explicitly say the company would fire more people. Neither did he say it will not.He, however, admitted there is "a lot of work left."

Google knows what it needs to do: Pichai

When asked under what scenario will Google consider more layoffs, Pichai said, "We are comfortable with our approach.""We have a clear view of what we need to work toward, both in terms of innovating and making sure we are able to build the things we need to, as well as making sure we are being more efficient as a company," he added.

The company plans to re-engineer its costs durably

Mark Zuckerberg announced 2023 will be the "year of efficiency." Google also plans to improve its efficiency.Speaking about making the company more efficient, the CEO said, "We're thinking about how to re-engineer our cost base in a durable way. We are definitely being focused on creating durable savings.""We are pleased with the progress, but there's more work left to do," he added.

Microsoft and OpenAI pose a significant challenge to Google's dominance

Pichai's comments come after Google parent Alphabet laid off 12,000 employees in January this year. It happened around the time when Bard, the company's AI chatbot, made its underwhelming debut.Questions are being raised about the longevity of Google's dominance in search, with Microsoft and OpenAI breathing down its neck.How will the company manage to be innovative in AI research while being efficient?

Google might need to save costs elsewhere

With its dominance in search at stake, Google will have to go lights out on AI research. For that, it must put significant resources into developing competitive alternatives to ChatGPT and GPT-4.However, that might make being efficient tough. The only solution is to save costs elsewhere, which could lead to another round of layoffs.

SCI FI TECH

Fusion Reactor: $65 Billion and Still No Electricity

BY LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

 APRIL 13, 2023

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Aerial view of the ITER site in France. (Photo: Oak Ridge National Laboratory/Wikimedia Commons)

As defined by World Nuclear News, the international fusion project known as ITER, exists “to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. The goal of ITER is to operate at 500 MW (for at least 400 seconds continuously) with 50 MW of plasma heating power input. It appears that an additional 300 MWe of electricity input may be required in operation. No electricity will be generated at ITER.”

Four hundred seconds. No electricity.

ITER, which stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is a collaboration between 35 countries that was first conceived in 1985 and formally agreed to on November 21, 2006. Construction began in 2010 at the Cadarache nuclear complex in southern France.

The  official seven group founding members of ITER are China, the European Union (then including the UK, which remains in the project), India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States.

By the time ITER is actually operational — if it ever is — it will have gobbled up billions of dollars. Currently, those cost estimates range wildly between the official ITER figure of $19-23 billion (likely a gross under-estimate) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) current estimate of $65 billion.

The starting price when the project began was around $6.3 billion.

If the DOE numbers are right, then those 400 seconds will cost $16.25 million a second. Just to prove that fusion power is possible. Without actually delivering anything practical at all to anyone.

Whatever the costs, they are too high to be remotely justifiable, given the end product and the far more compelling and essential competing needs of the world right now.

This first appeared in Beyond Nuclear International.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the editor and curator of BeyondNuclearInternational.org and the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear. 

Nigeria: Anti-Migration Bill Will Worsen Nigeria's Health Crisis - Doctors in Diaspora Warn Govt

By Sola OgundipeApril 12,2023

Groups of Nigerian doctors working in the Diaspora have petitioned the House of Representatives over the proposed bill to stop doctors and dentists from migrating abroad for greener pastures.

The proposed bill seeks to amend the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) Act to prevent Nigeria-trained medical or dental practitioners from being granted full licences until they have worked for a minimum of five years in the country, as part of measures to address brain drain in the sector.

In a letter addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, a copy of which was made available to Vanguard, the medical practitioners said the bill could worsen the nation's health crisis.

Copies of the letter entitled, 'Re: A Position Statement from Diaspora Medical Associations - Bill Seeking to Restrict Newly Qualified Medical Doctors and Dentists from Leaving Nigeria', were sent to the Senate President, Dr Ahmed Lawan, and the Chairman House Committee on Health, Dr Tanko Sununu.

The letter reads in part: "The Diaspora Medical Associations have observed with keen interest, the ongoing deliberations in the Green Chambers of the National Assembly regarding the proposed Bill sponsored by Hon. Ganiyu Johnson, to mandate any Nigerian-trained medical and dental practitioners to practice in Nigeria for a minimum of five years before being granted a full license by the Council.

"The bill which purportedly seeks a way to address the adverse effects of brain-drain may not be the most effective intervention to resolve the situation. It will be counterproductive and will not achieve its intended goal.

"We recognise the problems posed by the exodus of Nigerian medical professionals from our health system including, but not limited to decreased access to health care services, lack of quality of care, care delivery deserts the inability to adequately enact healthcare and public health policy due to lack of manpower and leadership resource.

"The medical or dental practitioner is the glue that keeps the team functional and the leading force for an effective health care delivery system. Similarly, the medical and dental professional bears the burden for systemic failures resulting in the maladaptive structure fostering stress, undue burden, physical and mental anguish, lack of job satisfaction, poor working conditions and much more.

"The major cause of brain drain includes a poor care delivery framework from a failure to invest in the healthcare to foster a conducive environment. The system does not promote professionalism, growth, work satisfaction nor a high reliability culture. Other major drivers include very poor welfare packages, high level of insecurity, limited opportunities for employment, sub specialty training, sociopolitical and economic instability.

"The majority of these issues stems from outside healthcare system and is outside of an individual's control. Indeed, good governance and commitment to future investment in healthcare would improve conditions in the country that will allow security, good education for children, improved compensation, as described in the Abuja Declaration."

In the letter, they observed that the migration of professionals is not limited to the medical and dental practitioners alone, saying that the question is why is the medical and dental profession being targeted?

According to them, "Focusing on one aspect of a problem without taking a holistic approach to a sustainable solution will be ineffective. Young professionals leave the country in search of better opportunities. Many are frustrated by the consequences of governance failures that have progressively worsened over the past 30 years.

"The unfortunate reality is the healthcare system is in a state of serious neglect, training and career development opportunities are limited further impairing earning potential. Insecurity is rampant. Equity and Justice are lacking for the average Nigerian."

The Diaspora Medical Associations said they are invested in crafting effective solutions and are willing to participate in fostering solutions to that extent.

"Hon. Speaker, we look up to your leadership in embracing the purposeful systemic solution and ensuring that a "quick fix" attempt does not worsen the situation. We in Diaspora, support the position statements from other stakeholders including Medical and Dental Consultants' Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), National Association of Government General Medical and Dental Practitioners (NAGGMDP), and Nigerian Medical Students Association (NiMSA).

"We will continue to support positive changes, and growth of our health sector, in all spheres and look forward to engaging with Hon. Abiodun Ganiyu Johnson and other members of the National Assembly in doing the serious work necessary to stop and reverse the brain drain. Diaspora healthcare workers would be willing to return to Nigeria if an enabling environment exists - reversing the trend and helping to solve the problem. Looking forward to solutions."

The letter was jointly signed by the President, Nigerian Doctors' Forum, South Africa (NDF-SA), Dr Emeka Ugwu; the President, Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas (ANPA), Dr Chinyere Anyaogu; the President, Medical Association of Nigerians Across Great Britain (MANSAG), Dr. Chris Agbo; the President, Canadian Association of Nigerian Physicians and Dentists (CANPAD), Dr Nnamdi Ndubuka, and the President, Nigerian Medical Association-Germany (NMA-Germany), Dr Al Amin Dahiru.

Read the original article on Vanguard.

A Half Century After Chile’s Coup: the First Year of Popular Unity

BY TAROA ZÚÑIGA SILVA

 APRIL 13, 2023
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Pictures of persons missing after the 1973 Chilean coup. Photograph Source: Marjorie Apel – CC BY-SA 3.0

Ten days after the 1973 coup against the Popular Unity (UP) government of President Salvador Allende, the military opened the Río Chico concentration camp on Dawson Island, located in the Strait of Magellan, near the southern tip of Chile. The island had served as an extermination camp by a Catholic order between 1891 and 1911 to confine the Selk’nam and Kawésqar peoples, who died due to overcrowding, the spread of disease, and the cold.

The coup regime sent 38 officials of the UP government to the Compañía de Ingenieros del Cuerpo de Infantería Marina (COMPINGIM) naval base and then to the Río Chico camp. It also sent hundreds of political prisoners to Punta Arenas, near Dawson Island. The officials were interrogated, tortured, and forced to work on the island’s infrastructure. The Río Chico camp was dismantled in 1974.

One of the prisoners at the camp was Miguel Lawner, an architect who led the government’s Urban Improvement Corporation (CORMU). During his imprisonment, Lawner walked around the prison to calculate the size of his room, the buildings at the camp, and the camp itself. He drew the layout for the camp but then destroyed it for fear of discovery by the guards. When he was in exile in Denmark in 1976, Lawner redrew the plans from memory. “The function creates the organ,” he said. “I developed an organ: the drawing, capable of fulfilling the function of leaving testimony of our captivity.”

During his imprisonment, Lawner told me, he worried that the military might accuse him of corruption for his leadership of CORMU. “I was trying to calculate how many millions of dollars had been [spent] in my name,” he recalled. “I calculated it to be between $150 million and $180 million. Later, I learned that the military spent six months investigating me and came to the conclusion that they owed me a per diem!”

The UP government (1970-1973) felt that the ministries of Housing and Public Works should be the engine of the economy, as “the two easiest institutions to mobilize,” Lawner said. Other areas, such as industrialization, “required more prolonged prior studies.” “In housing,” Lawner told me, “if you have a vacant lot, the next day you can be building.” In addition, there was a huge need for housing. The CORMU management decided to speed up the bureaucratic procedures and authorize the immediate disbursement of funds through an official, who was Lawner. “Our first year of government was a year of marvelous irresponsibility,” Lawner told me with a smile on his face.

Never Deviate From the Fundamentals

During the 1970 campaign for the presidency, Lawner accompanied Allende to a camp on the banks of the Mapocho River, where the people lived “outside the walls of society.” As they left the camp, Allende said to Lawner, “Even if things go badly for us, to get these comrades out of the mud—for that, it would be worthwhile for them to elect me president.” One year into the government, Lawner said, “We delivered the first houses of Villa San Luis. In April ’72 we had this project completely delivered: a thousand houses, the great majority of which corresponded to these two camps, el encanto and el ejemplo, which sat on the banks of the Mapocho River.” The main task of the UP government, he said, was “to resolve the fundamental demands of the sectors that had always been dispossessed.”

Under Lawner’s leadership, the CORMU officials—not all of them part of the UP project—postponed vacations and worked without overtime pay. “We gave all these officials the conviction that they were operating for the benefit of the common good and not, obviously, for the enrichment of a private company or the banks. In other words, they knew that they were working so that people could live better.” Also, he said, the objective of “making things beautiful” was imposed, arguing “that in social housing, beauty does not have to be the birthright only of the rich.”

The Explosion of the Countryside

Lawner recalled his great pride at the UP government’s nationalization of copper, its delivery of houses, and its role in the “explosion of the agrarian world.” The agrarian reform and the law for peasant unionization were passed in 1962, before the UP government. However, agrarian workers “continued to exist like serfs from feudal times,” Lawner noted. A week into his presidency, Allende was invited by the peasants of Araucanía to a meeting to which he brought his minister of agriculture, Jacques Chonchol. When an Indigenous leader spoke, Allende leaned over to Chonchol and said, “Listen, minister, I think you should remain here.” The minister, who “had to send for even his toothbrush,” remained there for three months, beginning his term installed in the countryside. Half a million hectares were transferred to the landless in the first year of the government.

The UP’s first year, Lawner recalled, was a “year of unbridled aspirations.” “For a person like me who was never a public official, the feeling of power is infinite, and the conviction that you are capable of doing anything is equally infinite… we promised more than we were capable of doing [having done three or four times more than the most that had ever been done in the history of the housing ministry], but everything we could do was done because of what is now lacking: the commitment of the officials. You have to have good leadership, it is true, but if you don’t have the commitment of the base, there is nothing you can do.”

Generations Contaminated by the Model

When we talked about the differences between the experiences at the end of the first year of the UP and the first year of Chile’s current President Gabriel Boric’s progressive government, Lawner pointed out that, in Chile “we have effectively been fed for 50 years the neoliberal doctrine of a formation contradictory to what you require in a progressive government. Imperceptibly, generations were formed that are, in my opinion, corrupted by the model. It is incomprehensible to them any other way.”

The current president of Chile’s Senate is Juan Antonio Coloma, a man of the extreme right. “When the 50th anniversary of the coup comes this September,” Lawner told me, “Coloma will be the country’s second most important political official.” Fascism’s rise, he said, is a global phenomenon, not only taking place in Chile. But Lawner does not despair. “You cannot determine when there is a spark that lights the fire again, but there is no doubt that it is going to happen.”

This article was produced by Globetrotter.