Job cuts at Amazon and Microsoft are the latest blow for the Seattle region in the US state of Washington, which is still struggling to recover from the pandemic-era destruction of the commuter economy that, as in many cities, is the lifeblood of America’s second-largest tech hub.
The number of jobs lost — at least 28,000 globally between the two companies — may seem minor for a region that employs more than 2.1 million. But it is a psychological blow that will make investors hesitant to start new projects and businesses even more reluctant to reopen or expand.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, cranes building new office towers dotted the skyline, and Seattle’s biggest problem was finding enough room for all the tech industry transplants. The city consistently ranked among the fastest growing in the country, adding more than 128,000 people from 2010 to 2020.
Now a growing glut of empty office space in the city centre suggests things are likely to get worse before they get better.
In a potentially ominous sign, Amazon plans to vacate a 28-storey office tower on 8th Avenue when the lease expires in April and relocate 2,000 employees.
“This downturn in tech is going to be devastating for Washington, and the long-term effects will be quite profound,” said Jeff Schulman, a marketing professor at the University of Washington.
“Tech companies have fuelled so much growth and change that when they tap on the brakes and go in reverse, it puts everything else in peril.”
After 2010, Amazon single-handedly transformed Seattle’s South Lake Union neighbourhood from a hodgepodge of warehouses and garages into a district of bars, burger shops, apartments and salons.
The company quickly filled the available space and marched closer to the city centre with new office towers and an architectural statement: biospheres that resemble massive Christmas baubles, filled with plants and trees where employees can relax.
The campus was central to Amazon’s recruitment of young techies seeking an urban lifestyle.
And recruit Amazon did. Since 2010, the company’s Seattle headcount has grown 10-fold to top 50,000, generating economic growth but also pushing up home and rent prices.
Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Salesforce, eager to poach Amazon employees, set up shops nearby.
For its part, Microsoft built a suburban enclave in Redmond and gradually spilt into adjacent Bellevue, so its retrenching presents less of a blow for the region’s urban core.
Bellevue, once home to strip malls and a couple of modest office buildings, has been refashioned into an outpost for tech companies, anchored by Microsoft, which swooped in during the 2000s to lease a handful of huge office buildings, including some at the core of a growing city centre.
Amazon’s Seattle campus is a quieter place these days, with echoes of a similarly afflicted San Francisco in California. Pavements and restaurants are empty. The first Amazon Go, a cashier-less store that opened in 2018 with lines stretching up the block, is now resorting to tired convenience-store marketing tactics, including 79-cent sodas and $1 coffee Mondays.
Even before starting to lay off workers late last year, Amazon throttled back some construction, The Seattle Times reported at the time, citing uncertain office demand amid the pandemic’s shift to hybrid work.
Microsoft has said it will let some major leases lapse in the coming years, while Meta is seeking to sublease an office building, the newspaper reported.
Meanwhile, Seattle landlords are watching vacancies mount. Leases of new office space in the region were down by more than one third from pre-pandemic levels.
And the share of offices available to rent rose to 22.3 per cent at the end of last year, nearly double what they were at the end of 2019, according to a report by office real estate broker Savills.
The industry’s presumption is that, with fewer people trekking into the city each weekday, companies will need a lot less space. For Amazon, that change would be sufficient to empty entire buildings, a process that will play out over the next several years as leases expire.
Even before the pandemic, Amazon was looking beyond Seattle to grow, partly due to rocky relations with the city and partly to make it easier to recruit. The company expanded into Bellevue, built satellite office hubs in cities such as Austin, New York and Boston and picked Arlington, Virginia, for its second headquarters following a much-hyped bake-off that pitted cities against one another.
For now, Seattle’s best hope for displaced workers and office brokers could be start-ups, including many launched by entrepreneurs who previously worked at Amazon and Microsoft.
“We haven’t seen a slowdown in the rate at which start-ups are forming and hiring,” said S Somasegar, managing director at Madrona, a Seattle venture capital firm.
“It’s going to be a tough year, but hopefully we start to see things bounce back in 2024 or 2025.”
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Ziina users can donate to relief efforts in Beirut
Ziina users will be able to use the app to help relief efforts in Beirut, which has been left reeling after an August blast caused an estimated $15 billion in damage and left thousands homeless. Ziina has partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to raise money for the Lebanese capital, co-founder Faisal Toukan says. “As of October 1, the UNHCR has the first certified badge on Ziina and is automatically part of user's top friends' list during this campaign. Users can now donate any amount to the Beirut relief with two clicks. The money raised will go towards rebuilding houses for the families that were impacted by the explosion.”
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
The schedule
December 5 - 23: Shooting competition, Al Dhafra Shooting Club
December 9 - 24: Handicrafts competition, from 4pm until 10pm, Heritage Souq
December 11 - 20: Dates competition, from 4pm
December 12 - 20: Sour milk competition
December 13: Falcon beauty competition
December 14 and 20: Saluki races
December 15: Arabian horse races, from 4pm
December 16 - 19: Falconry competition
December 18: Camel milk competition, from 7.30 - 9.30 am
December 20 and 21: Sheep beauty competition, from 10am
December 22: The best herd of 30 camels
DMZ facts
- The DMZ was created as a buffer after the 1950-53 Korean War.
- It runs 248 kilometers across the Korean Peninsula and is 4km wide.
- The zone is jointly overseen by the US-led United Nations Command and North Korea.
- It is littered with an estimated 2 million mines, tank traps, razor wire fences and guard posts.
- Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un met at a building in Panmunjom, where an armistice was signed to stop the Korean War.
- Panmunjom is 52km north of the Korean capital Seoul and 147km south of Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital.
- Former US president Bill Clinton visited Panmunjom in 1993, while Ronald Reagan visited the DMZ in 1983, George W. Bush in 2002 and Barack Obama visited a nearby military camp in 2012.
- Mr Trump planned to visit in November 2017, but heavy fog that prevented his helicopter from landing.
Dhadak 2
Director: Shazia Iqbal
Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri
Rating: 1/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
BULKWHIZ PROFILE
Date started: February 2017
Founders: Amira Rashad (CEO), Yusuf Saber (CTO), Mahmoud Sayedahmed (adviser), Reda Bouraoui (adviser)
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce
Size: 50 employees
Funding: approximately $6m
Investors: Beco Capital, Enabling Future and Wain in the UAE; China's MSA Capital; 500 Startups; Faith Capital and Savour Ventures in Kuwait
It’ll be summer in the city as car show tries to move with the times
If 2008 was the year that rocked Detroit, 2019 will be when Motor City gives its annual car extravaganza a revamp that aims to move with the times.
A major change is that this week's North American International Auto Show will be the last to be held in January, after which the event will switch to June.
The new date, organisers said, will allow exhibitors to move vehicles and activities outside the Cobo Center's halls and into other city venues, unencumbered by cold January weather, exemplified this week by snow and ice.
In a market in which trends can easily be outpaced beyond one event, the need to do so was probably exacerbated by the decision of Germany's big three carmakers – BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi – to skip the auto show this year.
The show has long allowed car enthusiasts to sit behind the wheel of the latest models at the start of the calendar year but a more fluid car market in an online world has made sales less seasonal.
Similarly, everyday technology seems to be catching up on those whose job it is to get behind microphones and try and tempt the visiting public into making a purchase.
Although sparkly announcers clasp iPads and outline the technical gadgetry hidden beneath bonnets, people's obsession with their own smartphones often appeared to offer a more tempting distraction.
“It's maddening,” said one such worker at Nissan's stand.
The absence of some pizzazz, as well as top marques, was also noted by patrons.
“It looks like there are a few less cars this year,” one annual attendee said of this year's exhibitors.
“I can't help but think it's easier to stay at home than to brave the snow and come here.”
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
The bio
Favourite food: Japanese
Favourite car: Lamborghini
Favourite hobby: Football
Favourite quote: If your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough
Favourite country: UAE
The%20specs%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2.0-litre%204cyl%20turbo%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E261hp%20at%205%2C500rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E400Nm%20at%201%2C750-4%2C000rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E7-speed%20dual-clutch%20auto%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFuel%20consumption%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E10.5L%2F100km%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENow%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFrom%20Dh129%2C999%20(VX%20Luxury)%3B%20from%20Dh149%2C999%20(VX%20Black%20Gold)%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
THE BIO
Bio Box
Role Model: Sheikh Zayed, God bless his soul
Favorite book: Zayed Biography of the leader
Favorite quote: To be or not to be, that is the question, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Favorite food: seafood
Favorite place to travel: Lebanon
Favorite movie: Braveheart
DUBAI CARNIVAL RESULTS
6.30pm Handicap US$135,000 (Turf) 2,410m
Winner Dubai Future, Harry Bentley (jockey), Saeed bin Suroor (trainer).
7.05pm UAE 1000 Guineas Listed $250,000 (Dirt) 1,600m
Winner Dubai Love, Patrick Cosgrave, Saeed bin Suroor.
7.40pm Dubai Dash Listed $175,000 (T) 1,000m
Winner: Equilateral, James Doyle, Charles Hills.
8.15pm Al Bastakiya Trial Conditions $100,000 (D) 1.900m
Winner Laser Show, Kevin Stott, Saeed bin Suroor.
8.50pm Al Fahidi Fort Group Two $250,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner Glorious Journey, James Doyle, Charlie Appleby.
9.25pm Handicap $135,000 (D) 2,000m
Winner George Villiers, Tadhg O’Shea, Satish Seemar.
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
The specs
Engine 60kwh FWD
Battery Rimac 120kwh Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (LiNiMnCoO2) chemistry
Power 204hp Torque 360Nm
Price, base / as tested Dh174,500
Padmaavat
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Starring: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Jim Sarbh
3.5/5
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
