Layoffs

Take control of your IT career amid layoffs

Judi Hasson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:27:40 -0400

Are you feeling insecure about your job with the economy reeling? Well, it may be time to get prepared rather than sitting back and just hoping for the best. John Estes, a vice president at staffing firm Robert Half International, and John Baschab, a senior vice president at Technisource, a staffing and IT managed services provider, have some advice for those IT workers who are concerned about losing their jobs.

In a CIO.com article, they urge workers concerned about layoffs to be proactive. They suggest that employees ask their managers how the economic situation of the company will affect them, whether other opportunities exist within the company and whether the company offers severance pay. They also advise IT workers to have an updated resume prepared and to start tapping into job search networks, including friends, business associates, clients, vendors, alumni groups and professional or social networking groups.

They also recommend meeting with an IT recruiter, exploring jobs outside your industry that can use your skills and keeping an eye on smaller companies that might offer bigger opportunities.

For more on the state of the industry:
- check out this CIO.com article

AMD takes $948 million in charges

Paul Mah — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:04:50 -0400

Chipmaker AMD has said it would take charges totaling a whopping $948 million for the second quarter of this year. The majority of the charges are related to the acquisition of ATI Technologies in 2006, according to a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A fuller picture emerges when the latest charge is combined with the $1.77 billion impairment charge that AMD already took in the last quarter of 2007. What happened is that AMD essentially had written down 50 percent of the $5.4 billion that it assigned against ATI during the acquisition.

AMD has also been conducting layoffs, and has taken aggressive cost-cutting measures in order to break even by the end of the year. This is in the wake of AMD reporting a loss of $358 million in the first quarter. The company's second-quarter financial result is scheduled to be released on July 17.

For more information on this report:
- check out this InformationWeek article

Layoff Watch: AT&T

Mehan Jayasuriya — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:44:16 -0400

AT&T announced today that it plans to cut 1.5 percent of its workforce, in response to "a sluggish U.S. economy." The cuts will focus primarily on management and other "areas that have little contact with customers." According to the company, the coming job cuts represent the "next step in streamlining its operations," following a number of acquisitions of regional companies during the past few years.

For more on the layoffs:
- see this CNET story

Layoff Watch: Dell, AMD, Moto

Mehan Jayasuriya — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:00:56 -0400

As much as it pains us to admit this, you can only stare a trend in the face and deny its existance for so long. So here goes: though its not entirely surprising given the doom and gloom that's being forecasted for the American economy, it seems like there are an awful lot of job cuts in the pipes at large tech companies lately. Here's a look at this week's worst, in what hopefully is both the first and last installment of FierceCIO:LayoffWatch:

Dell: Round Rock's finest seems poised to hold on to the title of No. 1 offender two weeks in a row. Hot on the heels of 8,800 announced cuts last week, acting CEO Michael Dell has announced that even more layoffs are on the way--at least 1,000 this quarter. Article
AMD: It's no secret that AMD is hurting and it looks like the layoff rumors were true: the company plans to cut loose 10 percent of its 16,000+ workforce by Q3 of this year. Sure, 1,600 jobs pales in comparison to Dell's announcement but I think that AMD deserves an equal amount of shame, given that the company denied rumors that it would layoff 5 percent of its workforce just a few weeks ago. Article
Motorola: Moto is in pretty dire straights, considering that the company is currently deciding whether or not to split in two, so a fresh round of job cuts doesn't come as too much of a surprise. Looks like 2,600 more Motorolans will be seeing pink slips soon, bringing the grand total, since the start of 2007, to over 10,000 jobs lost. Goodbye, Moto. Article

That's it for this week but buckle your seatbelts, folks: it could be a bumpy ride ahead.

AMD to layoff 5% of workforce?

Mehan Jayasuriya — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:17:09 -0400

AMD has been struggling at bit of late, so this doesn't come as a complete surprise: Rumors are circulating that the hardware manufacturer is preparing to announce 800 layoffs, representing around 5 percent of the company's global workforce. When reached for comment by CNET, the company denied that the cuts had already taken place but declined comment any further on the "rumors and speculation."

For more on the rumored layoffs:
- see this CNET article

ALSO NOTED: Avoid legal problems during layoffs; Are you a complainer?;

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:59:58 -0400

> IT workers attracted to McCain, Obama. Article
> Are you a complainer? Article
> If you could spell HTML in the past, you got hired. Article
> Avoid legal problems during layoffs. Article
> CIOs must anticipate the future. Article
> Gen Y may reinvent IT. Article

And Finally... Offshoring in India is not so cheap. Article

Sprint lays off 4,000 amid restructuring

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 06:59:57 -0500

As our sister publication FierceWireless reported earlier this week, job cuts are coming over at Sprint. As the first stage in his corporate restructuring, new CEO Dan Hesse announced 4,000 job cuts today and plans to close 125 Sprint retail locations. According to Sprint, these moves are aimed to help the company save as much as $800 million by the end of the year. The cuts come amid news of heavy subscriber loss at Sprint--the company reports losing some 683,000 subscribers and 202,000 pre-paid users last year. In a statement, the company maps out "continued downward pressure on subscriber trends, revenues, and profitability in 2008."

For more on the layoffs:
- see this FierceWireless article

Wireless industry deathwatch

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 06:59:57 -0500

This past year saw a number of players in the wireless industry falter and sway under the burden of financial expectations. Here's a quick look at a few of them:

Emboldened by the success of the Centro and re-energized by the arrival of new executive chairman Jon Rubinstein, Palm will continue to move away from the tired Treo profile and toward the modern smartphone. Sure, Palm probably won't make a huge splash this year (they'll need a next-gen mobile OS in order to do that) but the former PDA powerhouse will almost certainly live to see 2009.
While many a MVNO has already gone the way of the buffalo, Helio will likely live long enough to die another day, thanks to a recent infusion of cash from parent SK Telecom. The company also recently slashed spending thanks to a round of layoffs, further increasing buoyancy. And given that the company wasn't scheduled to turn a profit until 2009, I'd say that it's pretty safe for the time being. My guess is that SK Telecom is looking at Helio as a long-term investment--a beachhead into the U.S. wireless market--and is probably prepared to lose a little cash to gain a foothold.
While 2007 saw both Sprint and Clearwire struggling under the weight of expensive WiMAX network buildouts, 2008 will serve as the defining moment for both WiMAX and the carriers that will provide it. Though they called off their earlier partnership, it seems likely that the two companies will resume their earlier discussions now that there's a new CEO in the driver's seat at Sprint. And if they don't ink a partnership agreement? Sprint will likely have enough cash in its coffers to see it through the year. Clearwire, on the other hand, could soon find itself in way over its head.

Palm restructuring leads to layoffs

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:59:59 -0500

It might be the holiday season but as we saw from yesterday's leaked CompUSA layoff letter, that doesn't necessarily mean that the layoffs are coming to a halt. Here's more evidence: Palm has laid off an undisclosed number of employees as part of their ongoing restructuring effort. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company made "some reassignments and staff reductions" yesterday as part of the ~~bloodletting~~ restructuring being catalyzed by new executive chairman Jon Rubinstein, the former Apple exec known to some as "the Podfather." DailyTechRag has nothing but sympathy for anyone at Palm who might have lost their job yesterday--sure, you might need to break a few eggs to make an omelet but why so close to the holidays, guys?

For more on the staff cuts:
- see this Wall Street Journal article (sub. req.)

Employers looking for the ROI

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 08:00:00 -0400

It may be hard to believe, but despite the virtual world that we live in, the CIO's job is not always protected. There is plenty of unemployment in the IT industry, despite the continued growth in the field and new firms are popping up all the time. The IT industry is still relatively young, and it is now facing the growing pains that many other industries have faced in the past. Nevertheless, only an uninformed company thinks that it can go it alone, without the experience of a hands-on player who can fix a computer system when it crashes and teach employees how to get the best and most efficient return on a piece of technology.

Still, it will take time before IT becomes a necessary part of every organization's map and the topsy-turvy state of the employment market may discourage employers from providing on-the-job training and retraining, according to Ron Hira, assistant professor of Public Policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology and author of a report just issued by the nonprofit Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology. "Companies are less willing to pay for training and professionals development," Hira said. "In the past, they expected that you'd be with the company for a long time, so they'd be willing to pay tuition reimbursement or for other training. Now, employers, rationally, don't think they'll be getting the return on that investment [ROI], so they're not offering it. They know that the worker may jump ship, or they might lay them off," he told CIO Insight. It might be about time to show your employer that you're worth the investment. -Judi