Irish Examiner view: A sour taste

Job layoffs

 Staff Alexsandra Emilia Bednarz, Ewa Swiniarska, and Gitana Prochoroviene of the Butchers Block who were laid off by text message an hour before they were to report for work at the Blackpool Shopping Centre, Cork

In the last few weeks, the lay-offs in the technology sector have grabbed headlines all over the world — from Twitter to Stripe, Meta to Amazon, thousands of people have lost their jobs. The true nature of some of our latter-day billionaires, as revealed by their cavalier treatment of employees, has left a distinctly sour taste in the mouth.

In recent days, we have seen similarly heartless treatment of employees of the Butcher’s Block outlets in Cork. Workers in Blackpool and Douglas were given one hour’s notice by text that their jobs were gone and that they would not be receiving back pay or redundancy — and all this with just five weeks to Christmas.