Archive for Layoffs

RB | July 31, 2009
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Global Tech Layoffs Pass Half a Million

recessionThe global body count in the tech sector has risen above 500,000 in July 2009. Since the correction, recession, economic melt-down started in earnest in October 2008, approximately 505,477 tech related jobs have been right-sized, down-sized, resource actions eliminated. January 2009 is the worst month for employees with nearly 164,000 tech jobs eliminated. October 2008 saw over 56,000 workers pink-slipped. Approximately 53,500 tech workers we laid-off in both December 2008 and February 2009. The last two months have shown a decline in the numbers of tech workers getting the axe. During June 2009, 4,326 workers were laid off, the smallest monthly count since the economic melt-down started. July 2009 witnessed 12,65 layoffs, most from Verizon. The July count is also well below the average 50,000 lay-offs a month pace being set during the economic meltdown.

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These numbers say to me that we are still in for a long hard year before the anything like a real turn-around emerges. So despite what Newsweek says, the recession is not over.

Among the firms that generated these layoffs are:

  • Circuit City 34,000 layoffs
  • HP 30,000 layoffs
  • NEC 20,000 layoffs
  • Tyco 20,000 layoffs
  • IBM 18,000 layoffs
  • AT&T 16,600 layoffs
  • Sony 16,000 layoffs
  • BT 15,000 layoffs
  • Panasonic 15,000 layoffstech layoffs

Category: Business, Layoffs | Tags: , ,
RB | April 5, 2009
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Tech Layoffs Continue to Mount

351,202 families’ lives have been disrupted in the tech sector since October 2008, when the  banks lead us into the current depression recession economic downturn.  32,820 lay-offs have been announced in the tech sector during March 2009. The tech layoff leaders for March 2009 are:

The March total is the lowest since the depression recession economic downturn started.

  • February 2009 = 48,064
  • January 2009 = 150,014
  • December 2008 = 36,278
  • October 2008 = 50,204

This does not include the chaos that the President Obama’s abandonment of the working class, by sending GM and Chrysler into likely bankruptcy. We are seeing the further dismemberment of the middle class as Chrysler has outsourced its IT to India’s  Tata Consultancy Services in “a multi-year contract” worth about $120 million.

Chrysler’s remaining  2,100- person information technology department, mostly in Auburn Hills, MI will immediately loose 200 salaried technology workers. The balance of the layoffs will come from the ranks of contract workers in that department. They will leave in greater numbers, but Jan Bertsch Chrysler vice president and chief information officer didn’t offer specifics in the Detroit News article. Some employees may be hired by Tata or Computer Sciences, she said, and some work will be moved entirely off-site. According to the media, Tata will provide support, maintenance and services that “will encompass a portion of the functional areas within Chrysler, such as Sales and Marketing and Shared Services.”

Category: Business, Layoffs, Out-sourcing | Tags: , ,
RB | March 31, 2009
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IBM Cuts Staff, Seeks Stimulus

IBM is slated to lay-off 5,000 high-skill U.S. workers in its Global Business Services unit, transferring some of the work they performed to India, according to media reports. The cuts will affect mainly information technology and consulting work in such areas as customer relations management and supply chain management, says Lee Conrad, national coordinator of Alliance@IBM,

Armonk NY based IBM has been eliminating U.S based jobs for many years. IBM has previously reduced U.S. employment by 6,000 workers in 2008. Since 2003, the company has hired approximately 90,000 people in India and more than 5,000 in Brazil to do IT and business-process outsourcing [BPO] services work.

IBM is working to secure pieces of the give-away American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 $787 billion stimulus measure enacted in February. IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano was one of 13 executives who met with President Barack Obama in January in an appearance aimed at pressuring the House of Representatives to pass the economic stimulus bill. IBM is seeking a share of the $8 billion the U.S. plans to spend on high-speed rail and part of the $20 billion in the stimulus plan to digitize the U.S. health-care system. as well as resurrecting BPL as earlier noted here The give-away American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 includes $11 billion to be spent on ‘smart grid‘ systems to monitor and manage the nation’s electrical network.

According to CIO Today some economists have estimated that taxpayers are paying an average of $225,000 for each job created in the economic stimulus package. According to Martin Kenney, a professor of political economy at the University of California, Davis,: “Taxpayers are saying, ‘I don’t want to give them money if they’re moving jobs offshore.’”

rb- The give-away American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is turning out to be a $787 billion bailout of dubious firms like AIG and IBM and just keeps getting worse and worse for those of us who still work in America.

Category: Layoffs, Out-sourcing | Tags: , ,
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