Corporate razor gangs have been working overtime as the global slowdown takes grip on the real economy. The gravity of the crisis became clear to the world in September and October of 2008 with the collapse of many major financial institutions and the crash of the stock market, and since then many companies have moved to downsize their workforce.
The mass layoffs we are witnessing are just the beginning of the global slowdown and we can expect them to continue for quite a while. Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, which just announced cuts of 5,000 to its workforce, offered his thoughts on what lies ahead:
We're certainly in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime set of economic conditions. The perspective I would bring is not one of recession. Rather, the economy is resetting to lower level of business and consumer spending based largely on the reduced leverage in economy.
A few pages tracking the mounting layoffs have appeared on the Web:
Layoff Tracker — Forbes.com
Tech layoffs: The scorecard —
CNET News
The Wired.Com
Tech Layoff Tracker — Wired.Com
TechCrunch Layoff Tracker —
TechCrunch
Vault Layoff Tracker —
Vault
Forbes.com is also giving a weekly layoff report:
The Weekly Layoff Report: Jan. 23, 2009
The Weekly Layoff Report: Jan. 16, 2009
The Weekly Layoff Report: Jan. 9, 2009
Recently announced mass layoffs include:
Citigroup — 52,000
Bank of America — 35,000
Circuit City — 34,000 (bankrupt)
Woolworths Group — 27,000 (under administration)
Hon Hai — 20,000
Rio Tinto — 14,000
Alcoa — 13,500
AT&T — 12,000
BT Group — 10,000
Dell — 8,900
Sony Corporation — 8,000
TDK — 8,000
BHP Billiton — 6,000
Sun Microsystems — 6,000
Intel — 5,000-6,000
Credit Suisse — 5,300
Eaton Corp — 5,200
Dow Chemical — 5,000
Ericsson — 5,000
Laird — 5,000
Microsoft — 5,000
Stora Enso — 5,000
No comments:
Post a Comment