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Category: Layoffs
November 11th, 2009
Posted by Sam Diaz @ 4:43 pm
Categories: Economy, Layoffs
Tags: Job, Recovery, Workforce, Recruitment & Selection, Workforce Management, Payroll Solutions, Human Resources, Sam Diaz
What happened to the recovery - the light at the end of the tunnel, the beginning of the end - that big tech companies like Intel are talking about recently? That light, it seems, is still being shadowed by layoffs.
The latest company gearing up to hand out pink slips is semiconductor equipment company Applied Materials, which said on its earnings call today that it was reducing its workforce by 1,300 to 1,500 employees, or 12 percent of its workforce, according to a Dow Jones report.
Those cuts fall on the heels of other announcements this week - the 2.500 jobs being cut at Sprint-Nextel, the 1,500 at Electronic Arts, another 680 over at Adobe and even the 100 at AOL (with more to come, according to All Things D’s Kara Swisher). Add it all up and we top the 5,000 mark for the week - and today’s only Wednesday.
If you want to count by the month, let’s not forget Nokia-Siemens’ plans to cut more than 5,000 jobs or Microsoft’s 800. By my count, that puts us well over 10,000 jobs for November - and I’m sure there are some that I’m not counting and should be, like last month’s 3,000 at Sun.
There’s an old saying that things sometimes have to get worse before they can get better. It seems that this is one of those times.
July 21st, 2009
Posted by Sam Diaz @ 12:00 pm
Categories: Economy, IT jobs, Innovation, Layoffs
Tags: Silicon Valley, Optimism, Wired Inc., Recession, Arrogance, Unemployment Figure, Recruitment & Selection, Productivity, Smart Phones, Human Resources
The latest unemployment figures are in for Santa Clara County, California - aka Silicon Valley - and it doesn’t look good: 11.8 percent in the county is among the highest in the entire San Francisco Bay Area region.
Still, reporting from the front lines here, I can say that the doom-and-gloom is not filling the air. Instead, there’s a hint of Silicon Valley optimism in the air, the feeling that good things are in the future and that these tough times won’t last forever.
The latest example of this optimism comes from a Wired Magazine piece with the headline, “Laid Off? It’s Good for You and Good for the Tech Industry.” The piece correctly notes that foreclosures and bankruptcies are plaguing the region just the same as other parts of the country and that tech jobs have also taken a hit with the Valley losing nearly 10,000 tech jobs in the past year.
So why are northern Californians still smiling and telling everyone we meet to “Have a Nice Day?” It has to be more than just the near-perfect weather conditions. Consider this excerpt from the Wired piece:
Valley culture has an unwritten rule that if you don’t like a job, or if you think your company isn’t going anywhere, you leave. Instead of hanging around the office whining, you walk out the door and find something better and cooler to do. Because skilled tech workers are hard to find and interesting companies abound, employees, not employers, call the shots. This was true at Apple in 1984, and it’s still true at Facebook today.
At a recent tweet-up just outside San Francisco, I had a chance to mingle and talk to folks working in different areas of the tech industry. Yes, there were people who had been laid off and certainly they were concerned about it. But those same people were talking about the connections they had at startups scattered across the Valley.
They weren’t talking about the Facebook and Twitter-like startups, though. The startups they’re talking about are the ones that are still off-the-grid, ideas that found investors and are still in stealth mode building the technology and thinking about where to go when the companies outgrow a garage.
OK, maybe these startups don’t have the resources to do some massive hiring and bring that unemployment figure back down to a respectable level - yet. But this is Silicon Valley USA, a place where innovation is king. Just the idea that there are companies out there that are innovating and, eventually, will need people to help it grow is encouraging. Sure, times may be bad now - but imagine what’s brewing in the dorm rooms at Stanford, in the lofts of San Francisco’s SOMA District, in the garages of a San Jose neighborhood. Consider this other take-away from the Wired piece:
…there are still plenty of opportunities out there for Valley types: Facebook widgets, iPhone apps, Twitter tools, and cloud services are exploding. And getting in on that action doesn’t require a huge outlay of cash. If you can’t find a team to join, why not start your own? Individuals or small groups can make a good iPhone app; useful Web tools can be built with Amazon Web Services and user-generated content. Sure, financing is tight now, but these fields have oodles of potential, meaning the money will come as the economy rebounds. You’ll likely face lean times for a while, but there’s a good chance of making a bundle down the road.
For anyone who’s not from here, the Silicon Valley way of thinking is hard to grasp. A former colleague at the Washington Post once told me, “They speak a completely different language out there.” It sounds like optimism but wreaks of arrogance, he said.
Recalling that conversation with my former colleague, I went back and re-read the Wired piece. Oooh, maybe we do come across as arrogant - confident that, regardless of what’s happening in Detroit, Manhattan or other hard hit areas, Silicon Valley will rebound and rise again.
Is that arrogance? Or is it optimism? I’m tainted because I’ve been around this region my entire life. So, let me end this post with an invitation to chime in on Silicon Valley’s way of thinking. What’s your take? Chime in on the talkbacks.
June 29th, 2009
Posted by Jason Hiner @ 9:18 am
Categories: IT jobs, Layoffs
Tags: Job, Layoff, Information Technology, Benefit, Salary, Recruitment & Selection, Strategy, Workforce Management, Human Resources, Management
Both salaries for IT professionals and overall IT job openings are down in the past 18 months, according to new data released by Janco on Monday as part of its 2009 Mid Year IT Salary Survey. The survey also contained some other residual bad news for IT pros, although there were a couple a few bright spots.
Victor Janulaitis, Janco CEO, said, “The current economic climate with its cost cutting mind sets, business closures, and extensive outsourcing has put such great pressure on the IT job market that overall pay has been impacted. Added to that many ‘baby-boomers’ who had planned on retiring in the next few years are not leaving the job market and you have more potential employees than positions available.”
Some of the highlights from the report include:
- In addition to layoffs, many companies are doing hiring freezes
- A lot of mid-sized companies have completely stopped hiring
- Bonuses are being reduced for many IT workers
- Flexible work schedules are becoming less common
- Some IT pros are paying a greater share of their health care costs
- There is an over-abundance of veteran IT pros in the market, with many retirements being put off and many retirees returning to the job market
- The meltdown of the financial industry is drastically hurting the New York IT market. The report states, “There are over 200 IT professionals in the Metro New York are who earned well into six figures that are looking for work due to mergers, bankruptcies, and layoffs”
And here are some interesting graphs as well. The first one shows which IT jobs are in demand and which ones have been most in danger of being cut. The second shows the change in average IT salaries over the past 18 months. The third shows the demand for IT leadership jobs.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 24th, 2009
Posted by Jason Hiner @ 7:54 am
Categories: IT Management, Layoffs
Tags: U.S., Job, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Jason Hiner
The IT job market in the U.S. took another hit in May, shedding 34,800 jobs (a 0.9% drop) and posting the sixth straight monthly decline, according to the latest data from TechServe Alliance.
Total IT jobs in the U.S. stood at 3,849,100 at May. That’s a 5% decline from November 2008, when IT jobs hit a high of about 4, 050,000 (see chart below).
Nevertheless, TechServe also reported optimistic expectations. Mark Roberts, TechServe CEO, said, “Given that improvement in employment typically lags other economic indicators, the continued decline in IT employment was expected. Despite the generally gloomy IT jobs report, survey data and anecdotal reports from our member companies appear to suggest that there is some stabilization in the IT employment picture.”
(Click to enlarge chart)
June 3rd, 2009
Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 1:18 pm
Categories: Layoffs
Tags: Andrew Nusca
The number of job openings for C-level, VP, Director and managerial candidates improved in May for the first time since November 2008, according to recent data from CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index, which measures managerial recruitment activity across the United States.
Despite the May hike, managerial job listings have fallen 41 percent in the past 12 months, according to the research.
Read the rest of this entry »
May 14th, 2009
Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 3:20 am
Categories: Layoffs, Sony
Tags: Sony Corp., TVs, Personal Technology, Home Entertainment, Andrew Nusca
Sony said Thursday that it lost 98.9 billion yen, or about $1 billion, in the fiscal year through March and projected it would lose even more money this year amid a slump in consumer demand for electronics goods. It is the company’s first annual net loss in 14 years.
The manufacturer of Bravia flat-panel TVs, Cyber-shot digital cameras and Vaio computers also said it will close three plants in Japan this year to help turn its business around. That makes the total number of factories it is closing globally to eight through March 2010 and leaves 49 Sony factories worldwide.
[Official Sony filing (.pdf)]
Sony is also in the process of cutting 16,000 workers from its payrolls.
Read the rest of this entry »
May 5th, 2009
Posted by Sam Diaz @ 9:03 am
Categories: Economy, General, Layoffs, Microsoft
Tags: Job, Layoff, Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft Corp., Pink Slip, Recruitment & Selection, Pricing, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Marketing
Pink slips are being handed out around Microsoft again today, the second round of a previously-announced intention to trim 5,000 jobs. The question is: will there be more cuts?
In her post on the All About Microsoft blog, Mary Jo Foley notes that Steve Ballmer, in a e-mailed memo to employees, doesn’t rule out additional cuts beyond the 5,000 announced in January. He does, however, leave the door open for additional cuts, depending on the economy’s impact on the company. In the e-mail, he writes:
With this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010. We are moving quickly to reach this target in response to consistent feedback from our people and business groups that it’s important to make decisions and reduce uncertainty for employees as quickly as possible, and so that organizations can concentrate their efforts and resources on strategic objectives. As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations.
Microsoft officials tell Foley that roughly half the jobs being cut today will be in the U.S. but would not specify which groups were being targeted. In the previous round of cuts, the entertainment and devices team, the business-intelligence unit and other content-creation-focused positions were hit hardest.
March 25th, 2009
Posted by Sam Diaz @ 9:40 am
Categories: IBM, Layoffs
Tags: Job, Layoff, Wall Street Journal, IBM Corp., Job Action, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Sam Diaz
A big round of layoffs is expected in IBM’s U.S. global business services unit, with some of the jobs heading to India, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The number of jobs affected is unknown and IBM didn’t comment on the workforce reduction. But the WSJ points out that the group is the company’s largest in both revenue and employment, with 180,000 employees worldwide. Separately, IBM employees’ union posted on its site today an alert that job cuts are coming tomorrow and is asking its members to send any information they might have,
The job action goes to show that even companies that are profitable and showing growth are implementing cutbacks and shifting jobs. IBM had a strong fourth quarter and reportedly is in talks to acquire Sun Microsystems.
The company made a round of job cuts back in January. The WSJ said about 4,600 employees in its software, sales, semiconductor and finance groups received notices during that round.
March 12th, 2009
Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 1:38 am
Categories: Layoffs, National Semiconductor
Tags: Job, National Semiconductor Corp., Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Recruitment & Selection, Sales, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Andrew Nusca
Faced with a steep decline in sales, chip maker National Semiconductor said today that it will eliminate more than 25 percent of its workforce, or 1,725 jobs.
The company said it will immediately begin trimming 850 positions worldwide in its product, marketing, manufacturing and support businesses. An additional 875 jobs will be lost with the shuttering of facilities in Suzhou, China, and Arlington, Texas, in coming quarters.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has about 6,500 employees.
The company said the layoffs will cost $160 million to $180 million in severance and other charges. $130 million to $145 million will likely be recorded in this fiscal quarter.
The cuts come after National recorded a 71 percent decline in its third-quarter earnings, posting a profit of $21.1 million, or 9 cents per share, compared with $72.9 million, or 29 cents per share, a year earlier.
Sales fell more than one-third to $292 million from $453 million.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a loss of 5 cents per share on sales of nearly $296 million.
“The worldwide recession has impacted National’s business as demand has fallen considerably,” Chief Executive Brian L. Halla said in a statement.
National Semiconductor said it expects another 5 percent to 10 percent sequential decline in sales, which would put its fourth-quarter revenue between $263 million and $278 million. Analysts were expecting revenue of $293 million.
Shares of National Semiconductor fell 28 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $11.42 in morning trading.
The company also said its quarterly dividend would remain 8 cents per share and will be paid on April 14 to shareholders on record as of March 23.
March 11th, 2009
Posted by Sam Diaz @ 1:46 pm
Categories: AMD, General, Government, Intel, Layoffs, Outsourcing
Tags: U.S., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Worker, Intel Corp., Taxes, Free Trade, Personal Finance, Financial Planning, Finance, Sam Diaz
Executives from Intel, AMD and other tech companies were in Washington today, lobbying against policy changes related to taxes on overseas profits and calling for more visas to bring skilled workers to the U.S., according to a Reuters report. President Obama pledged last month to end tax breaks for companies that “ship our jobs overseas.”
Reuters notes that, in 1998, 35 percent of semiconductors sold were made in the United States, a figure that is now closer to 15-20 percent.
Executives, including Intel Chairman Craig Barrett and AMD Chairman Hector Ruiz, said higher taxes will cost jobs and decrease competitiveness. It’s not like Intel will pack up and leave the U.S., Barrett told reporters, but “you are adding a disincentive with this sort of tax policy.”
The execs also took issue with foreign-born students who are forced to return to their home countries after they’re educated in the U.S. because their visas expired. The H1-B Visa issue should not be lumped into the greater efforts to control illegal immigration, they said.
John Daane, chairman and chief executive of Altera Corp, said: “We’re not arguing for everybody. We’re arguing for graduate students.”
Intel and AMD were among companies that announced layoffs in January. Intel said in late January, following a horrible fourth-quarter earnings report, that it planned to reduce its workforce by 5,000-6,000 as it revamps its manufacturing operations. AMD said in January it was eliminating 1,100 jobs and implementing salary cuts.
Also see: Report: Tech layoffs skyrocket in 2008; not looking much better for ‘09
March 11th, 2009
Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 11:38 am
Categories: Dell, Layoffs
Tags: Layoff, Dell Computer Corp., North Carolina, Workforce Management, Sales Force Management, Productivity, Human Resources, Sales, Andrew Nusca
Dell is laying off workers around the world but won’t say how many or where, reports the AP.
The computer maker will confirm only that some of the employees are based at an assembly plant in North Carolina.
Dell opened the North Carolina factory in 2005, after state and local officials promised economic incentives worth more than $300 million. Dell planned to invest $100 million and create 1,500 jobs.
Dell spokesman Jess Blackburn said Wednesday the layoffs were part of the company’s efforts to streamline. But he would not say how many positions the company was cutting in North Carolina — or elsewhere.
The Round Rock, Texas-based company has been shifting work from its own factories to contract workers in the last year as the personal computer market has declined.
Shares of Dell were up 0.10, or 1.20 percent, to 8.87 in afternoon trading.
March 6th, 2009
Posted by Larry Dignan @ 6:32 am
Categories: Economy, General, Government, Layoffs
Tags: Job, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Larry Dignan
As expected, the Department of Labor’s February jobs report Friday was a train wreck. The economy lost 651,000 jobs in February, the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.1 percent and the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised December and January job counts sharply. But the information technology industry’s job picture looks decidedly better in some areas.
It’s hard to find a few bright spots when 651,000, 681,000 and 655,000 jobs were lost in February, January and December, respectively. However, the data indicates that there are more computer systems design and consulting services gigs than a year ago. There are also more communications equipment manufacturing jobs than a year ago.
Other areas in the tech industry lost jobs, but it clearly could have been worse. Here are the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ release and PDF tables. My excerpt of those tables along with my notes are below (click to enlarge).
Also see: CBS News.com: Unemployment Hits 8.1 Percent and layoffs by industry graphic
CNET News: From the counter-intutive files: IT demand is… up?
March 5th, 2009
Posted by Sam Diaz @ 2:25 pm
Categories: General, Government, Layoffs, Politics, Web 2.0
Tags: Republican, Worker, RNC, Tech Worker, Post, Blogging, Productivity, Internet, Sam Diaz
The Republicans had big dreams of catching up to their Democratic counterparts when it came to the utilizing technology to advance their causes. Last summer, the Washington Post profiled the man that the Republican National Committee was counting on to take them to the next level, Microsoft and Yahoo veteran Cyrus Krohn.
The Post’s “44″ blog reports today that Krohn has resigned from his position as the RNC’s online director, calling it a “heavy blow - not just to the RNC but to the conservative blogosphere.” It was just two weeks ago, at a technology summit, that RNC Chairman Michael Steele said that leveraging the Internet to attract voters to the party was a top priority. And now, the RNC is without an online director.
But it wasn’t the news of his resignation that caught my attention in this particular blog post. What struck me was the quote from Krohn about the GOP’s need for “platforms and applications to allow more people to self-organize and become activists.” The follow-up quote that caught my eye (bold-faced by me for emphasis) was:
Change comes quickly online and the tide will turn again in favor of the GOP, once we hone our message and harness emerging technologies. To do that, we must match Democrats, programmer-for-programmer. Regrettably, we’re in terribly short supply of professionals focused solely on building platforms and applications. This is where we got dot bombed in 2006 and 2008. Maybe we should start providing computer science scholarships in exchange for a commitment to serve our party?
Really? Given the sheer number of layoffs in the tech industry in this country and the RNC is is “terribly short supply” of professionals. Maybe there are one or two laid off tech workers in Silicon Valley who might be a fit for these jobs. After all, in January alone, I counted more than 25,000 laid off workers in the tech sector.
In case no one at the RNC has heard, the unemployment rate in Santa Clara County, California - the capital of Silicon Valley - is above the national average these days.
I find it discomforting that such a statement could be muttered in these sort of economic times. If you’re a laid-off tech worker who knows how to build platforms and apps, I hear the Republicans are in need of some techies.
Get that resume ready.
February 23rd, 2009
Posted by Sam Diaz @ 2:50 pm
Categories: Layoffs, Microsoft
Tags: Microsoft Corp., Worker, Financial Services, Sam Diaz
Microsoft, portrayed as a Scrooge for asking laid-off workers to repay erroneous severance overpayments, has had a change of heart. Today, Microsoft human resources chief Lisa Brummel told CNET that “it didn’t make sense for us to continue on the path we were on.”
Over the weekend, news of the overpayments hit the Internet and immediately created a stir - launching a debate among readers commenting on my own blog post about the ethics of returning what doesn’t belong to you. In an unofficial ZDNet poll of more than 12,000 readers, a whopping 72 percent said they would keep the money and make Microsoft sue to get it back.
Of the 1,400 workers let go last month, about 25 were overpaid to the tune of about $4,000 to $5,000 each, according to the CNET report. Additionally, about 20 laid-off workers were underpaid, Brummel said. She said that, in most cases, it makes sense for companies to recover money overpaid due to accounting errors but call this situation an extraordinary one. Brummell said she has spoken individually to most of the affected employees already to update them on their severance packages.
A final thought: I’ve been known to beat up on Microsoft over Vista, slam it for its ad campaign and mock it for taking so long to roll out its products. But I will say that the company reacted quickly and correctly on this matter. Good for you, Microsoft.
February 22nd, 2009
Posted by Sam Diaz @ 12:21 pm
Categories: General, Layoffs, Microsoft
Tags: Accounting, Microsoft Corp., Worker, Internet, Operational Accounting, Financial Services, Finance, Sam Diaz
No matter how you slice it or dice it, there’s no way Microsoft comes out smelling like a rose on this one.
As the company was handing out pink slips to some 1,400 employees last month, the accounting department apparently was using fingers and toes to calculate severance packages. It turns out that the company overpaid these former workers and, now that the error has been discovered, Microsoft wants its money back.
The copy of the letter floating around the Internet has the names and dollar amounts blacked out so it’s hard to say if the payback amount is $10, $100, $1,000 or more. And we also don’t know if all 1,400 laid-off workers were affected. But, just for laughs, let’s do some very simple layman’s math:
If it’s a $10 overpayment, then the overpayment comes to $14,000. At $100, it totals $140,000 and at $1,000, we come up with a whopping $1.4 million in overpayments. On the other side of that equation, there’s Microsoft’s cash-in-the-bank: roughly $20.7 billion at the end of the last quarter. Let’s just say the company takes the $1.4 million loss out of their cash-on-hand. (I know it’s likely more complicated than that, but for this example, let’s assume that’s how it happens.) That leaves the company with roughly $20,698,600,000. Rounded up, that leaves the company with… Hey, what do you know? It’s still $20.7 billion.
Again, we don’t know the amounts at play here. But given the negative publicity - did anyone really think that this wouldn’t end up on the Internet? - wouldn’t it have been easier to just take the write-off and avoid dumping even more salt into the wounds of the laid-off workers? And what if the company has to take legal action to recover those funds? The lawyers will surely get paid, right?
Just wondering: is the head of accounting coughing up any of his paycheck to cover this flub?
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February 10th, 2009
Posted by Phil Fersht @ 2:54 pm
Categories: Credit crisis, Economy, IT Management, Layoffs
Tags: Cost, Talent, Information Technology, Strategy, Management, Phil Fersht
There’s currently a certain sense of déjà-vu within the IT community, as companies look at shaving even more cost out of a function that has been battered since the 2001 dot-com bust. However, when we look at the lessons of the past, you do have to question companies which decide to sharpen their knives once more when they address their IT costs. Companies need to offset the cost of every layoff with the cost of replacing that talent when the economy improves. It is not so much who is left standing, but rather who is in position to grasp the brass ring of prosperity when it returns.
If economic conditions improve in 2010, then the amount of costs saved by releasing an employee may only be $50-100K by the time all the lay-off costs are incurred. 
How can you put a price on replacing the inherent business knowledge of that staff member when you re-hire a replacement? It may take another year or two to get the replacement up-to-speed, and will not only end up costing you more, but may also impede your executives from accessing critical data in a timely fashion. The overall cost of replacing that staff member could easily be three times the costs saved by laying her off. And these easily-identified direct costs are only the beginning; the costs incurred to your culture and morale can prove even more damaging.
There are lessons to be learned from those who did it right and those who failed to do so during the recession of 2001. The frequently cited observation by George Santayana warrants consideration, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Furloughed IT employees in the RIF of 2001 were often reluctant to return to their previous employer. Having been viewed as expendable, the trust and bond between the two may have become a casualty. Often the company belatedly discovered the employee was not at all expendable.
Companies often failed to realize that internal technology is an ongoing work in progress with parts of the past moving forward into the future. With essential team members no longer on board, projects bogged down due to a loss of internal expertise. If new employees were brought in, there were reduced capabilities with a learning curve to scale brought on by a unique IT environment.
IT is the glue that provides the connectivity within an organization and stakeholders. Every environment is unique, often featuring proprietary software and customized legacy systems. The complexity and diversity that results are best left in the hands of those who understand and are familiar with it. In 2001 firms laid off across the board only to discover that when times improved and IT projects resumed, many key people needed to implement them were no longer available. When entering into new engagements, some companies discovered that the chickens had come home to roost and that they were in the coop.
Whether outsourcing or aligning with business partners, management teams are built involving IT. And while outsourcing provides access to technical skills to support your tactical software support and maintenance, it rarely provides the inherent understanding of your business processes and environment that several of your key staff have.
Companies facing the challenges of 2001 with the foresight to prepare for renewed business opportunities in the future fared well. Instead, being reactive to the recession, they became proactive in their business. As opposed to across the board cuts, they applied due diligence and root cause analysis into their business. They prioritized strategically. In so doing, they were able to make adjustments to reduce unneeded expenses. Much of this involved taking advantage of global labor arbitrage for routine work. They also invested in initiatives to improve the business, often involving technology. It became apparent that the success of these initiatives was very much tied into keeping their key IT in-house people on the team.
There is a form of a parable concerning competitors who are prepared and those who are not. Two friends were walking in the forest when a bear came after them. They both turned and fled. One was not in very good condition and he breathlessly called out to his fit friend who was jogging along ahead, “You need to outrun the bear!!” “No I don’t,” came the reply. “I only need to outrun you.”
The current economic morass will not produce winners, but it will produce companies that are in more favorable positions to take advantage of opportunities at the expense of their more sluggish competitors when times improve. Cutting people that shouldn’t be cut can be cutting your own throat.
Feel free to check out my personal blog “Horses for Sources” for more articles,
Phil Fersht
February 4th, 2009
Posted by Sam Diaz @ 8:47 am
Categories: Economy, General, Hitachi, Layoffs, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba
Tags: Job, Panasonic, Loss, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Sam Diaz
Panasonic, facing its first loss in six years amid slowing demand for consumer electronics such as TVs, said today that it will slash 15,000 jobs, according to a Bloomberg report. For the year ending March 31, the company forecast a net loss of 380 billion yen, or $4.3 billion, and a 15 percent drop in sales.
About half of the job cuts will be in Japan, with the other half distributed at operations around the globe, and should be complete in March 2010. The company will close 27 factories, 13 in Japan and 14 in other global locations. In a statement, the company said:
The current financial crisis [that] originated in the United States has spread across the world and the company’s outlook [in] the business environment has been extremely uncertain. The company’s business conditions have worsened particularly since last October, due mainly to the rapid appreciation of the yen, sluggish consumer spending worldwide and ever-intensified price competition.
Last week, rival Sony reported its first annual loss in 14 years and Toshiba forecast a record annual loss of about $3.1 billion for the year ending March 31. Yesterday, Hitachi reported a $4.1 billion loss for its third quarter and said it would reshuffle its executive leadership.
January 29th, 2009
Posted by Sam Diaz @ 1:45 pm
Categories: Economy, General, IT Management, Layoffs
Tags: Silicon Valley, Job, Layoff, Industry, Unemployment, Workforce Management, Recruitment & Selection, Strategy, Human Resources, Management
When the economy started to crumble for the housing, automotive and banking industries last year, there’s was some optimism that Silicon Valley and the tech industry might be able to withstand the storm.
Clearly, that was a short-lived dream.
A report released today by consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that tech took a beating in 2008 (mostly in the second half), slashing nearly 187,000 jobs in the telecommunications, computer and electronic sectors, an increase of more than 74 percent compared to the previous year.
How bad is it? CNET’s Dawn Kawamoto notes that the unemployment rate in Santa Clara County, California - the region commonly known as Silicon Valley and one of the most expensive areas to live, outside of Manhattan - has an unemployment rate that has passed the national figure. She writes:
Within the various sectors in tech, electronics firms saw losses of 73,447 jobs, an increase of 89.7 percent over the previous year; the telecommunications industry saw an increase of 72.5 percent; and cuts in the computer industry were up 61.3 percent. And in the Silicon Valley, for just the month of December, the unemployment rate rose to 7.7 percent in Santa Clara County and 5.9 percent in San Mateo County. Nationwide, the unemployment rate reached 7.2 percent for the month of December.
The tech industry hasn’t seen unemployment levels like this since 2003, the report noted. And it seems, based on just the first month of the new year, that 2009 won’t look much better. John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in statement
Through the first half of 2008, it looked as though the tech sector might be one of the few areas of the economy to remain resistant to recessionary pressures. However, the economy’s continued slide here and overseas saw consumer and corporate demand for technology products and services drop rapidly,and these firms were suddenly under pressure to make significant cost-cutting moves… Cuts could reach even higher in 2009, as there is no evidence yet that the economy has hit the bottom of this downward portion of the cycle. We almost certainly will not see a repeat of the 2008 first quarter, in which tech cuts totaled just 17,345.
In January alone (and there’s still one more day left of the business month), we’re seen layoff headlines from:
In all (and I know I’ve probably forgotten a couple), that makes just shy of 25,000 tech jobs announced in January alone. That doesn’t even count previously announced layoffs that will come down the pipeline this year, including Dell (8,800), Sun Microsystems (6,000) and Motorola (3,000).
Also see: IT jobs outlook for 2009: The good and the bad
January 28th, 2009
Posted by Sam Diaz @ 1:36 pm
Categories: AOL, Economy, General, Layoffs
Tags: Layoff, America Online Inc., Workforce, Workforce Management, Recruitment & Selection, Payroll Solutions, Human Resources, Sam Diaz
AOL told its employees today that it will lay off 10 percent of its workforce - roughly 700 people - to help the company work through the recession. The reductions should be complete by the end of March and a consolidation of groups within the company are expected to follow. Merit raises also have been eliminated.
The news was first reported on the Boomtown blog, which has also posted the full text of the e-mail to employees. In it, CEO Randy Falco told employees:
Reducing our workforce is never easy, particularly in the current climate, but our goal in doing this is to provide our core businesses the resources they need to thrive. Please know that, as always, we’ll be doing everything we can to help and support those affected, including offering severance packages and other services.
In the memo, Falco said that online marketers have “tightened their ad buying across the board, reducing their spend by hundreds of millions of dollars.” AOL’s declining ad revenue has been weighing down parent company Time Warner.
January 27th, 2009
Posted by Jason Hiner @ 2:15 am
Categories: Economy, General, IT Management, Layoffs
Tags: Job, Layoff, Information Technology, Salary, Strategy, Recruitment & Selection, Management, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Jason Hiner
A depressing string of layoff announcements across the corporate world has gotten 2009 off to an inauspicious start. So what do the trends mean for IT employment in 2009? Here’s a sober look at both the good signs and the bad.
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January has been brutal for U.S. workers. Company after company has announced layoffs, salary freezes, unpaid furloughs, hiring freezes, plant closings, and budget cuts. With all the bad news flooding the wire, it’s easy to forget that more than nine out of ten Americans in the workforce still have jobs despite the dramatic downturn.
Those who work in the IT profession are certainly not immune to the pain that has been afflicting the U.S. job market, but they do have a few factors going for them that could help many of them weather the storm better than some of their co-workers in other fields. Let’s take a look at several trends - the good and the bad - currently affecting the IT job market and then read the tea leaves to decipher what we might expect from the IT jobs outlook in 2009.
IT pro salaries went up in 2008
As part of its annual salary survey, the tech job portal Dice.com surveyed 19,444 IT professionals between August and November 2008. Dice reported that the average salary for working in IT is now $78,035, a 4.6% increase over 2007 ($74,570).
Other key findings from the survey include:
Read the rest of this entry »
Jason Hiner is the Editor in Chief of TechRepublic, ZDNet's sister site. Read his blog Tech Sanity Check at hiner.techrepublic.com. You can also find him on Twitter, LinkedIn, and JasonHiner.com.
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