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.”
In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
Profile box
Company name: baraka
Started: July 2020
Founders: Feras Jalbout and Kunal Taneja
Based: Dubai and Bahrain
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: $150,000
Current staff: 12
Stage: Pre-seed capital raising of $1 million
Investors: Class 5 Global, FJ Labs, IMO Ventures, The Community Fund, VentureSouq, Fox Ventures, Dr Abdulla Elyas (private investment)
The%20specs
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if you go
The flights Fly Dubai, Air Arabia, Emirates, Etihad, and Royal Jordanian all offer direct, three-and-a-half-hour flights from the UAE to the Jordanian capital Amman. Alternatively, from June Fly Dubai will offer a new direct service from Dubai to Aqaba in the south of the country. See the airlines’ respective sites for varying prices or search on reliable price-comparison site Skyscanner.
The trip
Jamie Lafferty was a guest of the Jordan Tourist Board. For more information on adventure tourism in Jordan see Visit Jordan. A number of new and established tour companies offer the chance to go caving, rock-climbing, canyoning, and mountaineering in Jordan. Prices vary depending on how many activities you want to do and how many days you plan to stay in the country. Among the leaders are Terhaal, who offer a two-day canyoning trip from Dh845 per person. If you really want to push your limits, contact the Stronger Team. For a more trek-focused trip, KE Adventure offers an eight-day trip from Dh5,300 per person.
The specs
Engine: 6.2-litre supercharged V8
Power: 712hp at 6,100rpm
Torque: 881Nm at 4,800rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 19.6 l/100km
Price: Dh380,000
On sale: now
'Skin'
Dir: Guy Nattiv
Starring: Jamie Bell, Danielle McDonald, Bill Camp, Vera Farmiga
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
MATCH INFO
Barcelona 2
Suarez (10'), Messi (52')
Real Madrid 2
Ronaldo (14'), Bale (72')
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The biog
From: Upper Egypt
Age: 78
Family: a daughter in Egypt; a son in Dubai and his wife, Nabila
Favourite Abu Dhabi activity: walking near to Emirates Palace
Favourite building in Abu Dhabi: Emirates Palace
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
How to join and use Abu Dhabi’s public libraries
• There are six libraries in Abu Dhabi emirate run by the Department of Culture and Tourism, including one in Al Ain and Al Dhafra.
• Libraries are free to visit and visitors can consult books, use online resources and study there. Most are open from 8am to 8pm on weekdays, closed on Fridays and have variable hours on Saturdays, except for Qasr Al Watan which is open from 10am to 8pm every day.
• In order to borrow books, visitors must join the service by providing a passport photograph, Emirates ID and a refundable deposit of Dh400. Members can borrow five books for three weeks, all of which are renewable up to two times online.
• If users do not wish to pay the fee, they can still use the library’s electronic resources for free by simply registering on the website. Once registered, a username and password is provided, allowing remote access.
• For more information visit the library network's website.
On Instagram: @WithHopeUAE
Although social media can be harmful to our mental health, paradoxically, one of the antidotes comes with the many social-media accounts devoted to normalising mental-health struggles. With Hope UAE is one of them.
The group, which has about 3,600 followers, was started three years ago by five Emirati women to address the stigma surrounding the subject. Via Instagram, the group recently began featuring personal accounts by Emiratis. The posts are written under the hashtag #mymindmatters, along with a black-and-white photo of the subject holding the group’s signature red balloon.
“Depression is ugly,” says one of the users, Amani. “It paints everything around me and everything in me.”
Saaed, meanwhile, faces the daunting task of caring for four family members with psychological disorders. “I’ve had no support and no resources here to help me,” he says. “It has been, and still is, a one-man battle against the demons of fractured minds.”
In addition to With Hope UAE’s frank social-media presence, the group holds talks and workshops in Dubai. “Change takes time,” Reem Al Ali, vice chairman and a founding member of With Hope UAE, told The National earlier this year. “It won’t happen overnight, and it will take persistent and passionate people to bring about this change.”
PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
DSC Eagles 23 Dubai Hurricanes 36
Eagles
Tries: Bright, O’Driscoll
Cons: Carey 2
Pens: Carey 3
Hurricanes
Tries: Knight 2, Lewis, Finck, Powell, Perry
Cons: Powell 3
Honeymoonish
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Brief scores
Toss India, chose to bat
India 281-7 in 50 ov (Pandya 83, Dhoni 79; Coulter-Nile 3-44)
Australia 137-9 in 21 ov (Maxwell 39, Warner 25; Chahal 3-30)
India won by 26 runs on Duckworth-Lewis Method
