It wasn't that long ago that Monday mornings in the office were a depressing time -- another cheerful weekend gone; another long week of work ahead. But, these days, being in the office on a Monday is a
good thing, because if your login still works you've survived another scary layoff Friday. Spare a thought, then, for those whose system access has been cut off, including 1,300 from Sun (the first wave of a total of 6,000 planned job cuts), 8,000 workers at Sprint who are due to receive pink slips, 6,000 from Philips, and an unannounced number of IBM workers (rumored to be 16,000) who have also found themselves to be on the wrong side of the cost-cutting ax. In one final bit of cheery news, AMD has reported a $1.4 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2008 and, after
shedding its handheld graphics unit, is now selling its manufacturing operations to Advanced Technology Investment. Oh, sorry, you were hoping for some genuinely good news? How about this: that loss is
smaller than AMD's $1.8 billion loss from the same time last year. Now have a great day!
Read - Sun confirms 1,300 layoffs
Read - Sprint Nextel Plans to Cut 8,000 Jobs in Quarter
Read - Philips to Release 6000 Employees into Wild
Read - Several IBM employees report being laid off on Alliance@IBM
Read - IBM Confirms Layoffs
Read - AMD Reports $1.4 Billion Loss
posted Jan 26th 2009 9:57AM
Home Depot is also axing 7,000 jobs, not that that's very tech-related (although you can get a good deal on Ethernet crimpers there)
Gee, as if Monday morning's weren't depressing enough to begin with...
Engadget, you are a bigger buzz kill than Buzz Killington.
(Peter is at a party with some anonymous friends; Buzz Killington enters and sits everybody down)
Buzz Killington: (Hands Peter a picture of a man riding a Penny Farthing bicycle.) Now, here's a fellow attempting to ride a bicycle. But he's having some trouble, isn't he? And do you know why?
Peter: (Sighs) Why?
Buzz Killington: Because he's a Scot! (laughs) Now, who here likes a good story about a bridge?
Peter: (Groans, lifts his glasses and rubs his eyes)
The manatees were in rare form with that one.
i love how engadget makes it sounds so exciting and good
You know what's funny?
IBM is recruiting massively in Bulgaria and Romania. Guess those reds did win in the end...
No they didn't win.In fact they failed miserably, leaving their own ppl in such poverty that they'll work for comparatively fuck all, making IBM's prods cheaper and therfore us and IBM the winners.........
Well, Bulgaria's corporate income tax rate is 10%. Romania's is 16%. America's? 15-35%, and you can bet a big company like IBM isn't paying less than 35%. Looks like the reds and the blues may have traded place to the detriment of us all.
"if we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy." - Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 29 November 1802
Bulgaria's corporate income tax rate is 10%. Romania's is 16%. Ours is 15-35%, and you can bet a big company like IBM wasn't paying less than 35%. Is there any real question why big business is migrating elsewhere?
Sorry, the Romanian & Bulgarian economies is currently in deep s¨t. Bulgaria is suffering from high inflation at 11%, and many Romanian companies like Dacia are cutting jobs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7807292.stm)
ugh, I am officially depressed. I mean sure, I have a job (for now. but evaluations are right around the corner so that may change) but its monday and i'm tired and sick from all the strong laxatives and wild turkey rare breed i had this weekend. kill me now, engadget...please.
"This guy sure does show up hungover a lot... we do need to fire someone..."
Save us Obama, your our only hope.....sorry guys I had too. :-D
Shouldn't that have been "Help us Obama-Wan Kenobi, your our only hope"?
Thanks to the Chicago Politician with the Blank Resume, at least one of my businesses is booming big time right now, and I'm making hay while the sun shines. Because if BHO successfully implements the failed policies of FDR which converted a sharp recession into a global financial disaster, the sun's gonna set for a LONG time.
---
www.chl-tx.com
Really? How do you propose he does that?
Or are you hoping he does all the work and that he is some type of magician? Do you want your government to do everything for you or will you get off your lazy ass and actually do something as well like a real American?
Here's a good plan:
Borrow 800 billion dollars and give everyone a "tax refund" check for $1,000, whether or not they actually pay taxes. Add that $800B to the national debt, and sell more 30 year bonds at, say 3%. Actual cost to the tax payer: $1.2 Trillion dollars.
Assuming of course you can find some one to buy the bonds...
On second thought, that sounds like a really stupid idea.
"real American"
There are very few of these left. Today's America is a gimme state: "Gimme this, gimme that. I deserve it!"
Wow, where were you guys during election?
Damn. That is better. And yes I was thinking Star Wars.
Haha, awesome. I get to find out through Engadget that Philips is laying off even more of us. I'll probably be commenting from the welfare line soon, so best of luck to the rest of you.
Ugh!
Even though My job is actually pretty secure due to the fact that I see an increase in business during bad times, I cant help but feel completely awful for all of these folks.
Despite all of the fanboy flamwars we see here, everyone should be pulling for every company to do better soon for all of our sake!
@ Look_Around_You
Lemme guess... repo-man or bartender?
Nooooooooooooo. :D
A bit more enlightening to civilization than those. But those wouldn't be a bad business to get into these days.
In my company only the person in charge of contracting new employees was fired till now … truly.
Good thing we spent that 750 Billion on a stimulus program. Know what would be even better? Spend another 800 Billion.
Like I mentioned before.
I lost my job a coupLE of weeks back.
:( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
Lucky me i somehow managed to save. Some how I managed to hold myself and defeat inpulse buying. I contained myself from
plunking down money on products I dont need. IN OTEHR WORDS I MANAGED TO BEAT THE VIRAL MILLION DOLLAR MARKETING CAMPAIGNS BESTOWED UPON US EVERY YEAR. TAKE THAT!!! YOU CORPORATE BLOOD SUCKING DRONES.
Sucks that not even my career can help me find a job right now. I am about to take a pay cut hey Harrison Ford did it why not me.
Computer programmer/graphic designer/I.T available anytime.
Probably not that good at it if you lost your job...
Caterpillar is axing 20,000. they've got computers and stuff............
not good to hear, I've got a friend in peoria, IL working at cat.
buy AMD people!!!
You guys need to add Microsoft laying off 5,000 employees
Microsoft is laying off closer to 15,000. They say 15% of contingent staff and just before I was canned on the 23rd, there was about 70,000 contingent staff. They don't announce that stuff to the news because it is terrible PR, but the truth is they are taking away 15,000 jobs and that means more people in the jub hunt.
Everyone thought the Healthcare industry was recession proff but with tens of thousands of people being laid off every month thats fewer people with insurance to go to the hospitals and along with the rest of hospital consultants out there, are starting to feel the pinch. Not to mention everything we do is technology related.
I've heard from several friends in Seattle (all of which have lost tech jobs recently) that the unemployment site is down from tons of traffic and that the lines are days long locally.
How quickly we forget how much worse the High-Tech collapse of 2002/2003 was. I got laid off in that round as did several colleagues and it was very rough going. I have more opportunities now--not much more, but more--than I did five years ago. Objectively, I think this current round of layoffs in technology is only an extension of the DOT com bust. Companies are finally facing the reality of non-profitability in their over-hyped divisions.
Normally, this would all be good in the long run. It would infuse new ideas into the marketplace. New companies would arise. Unfortunately, government regulation is at least magnitude higher than it was ten years ago, there is a lack of liquidity in financing and the government is only making it worse with the so called bailout and stimulus packages. The best way to help the economy would be for the government to reduce taxes and regulations and get the hell out of the way.
Actually it's pretty clear that a lack of regulation is what got us into this mess.
And what regulation was repealed to lead to this current crisis, if you could tell us?
@Andy
And what regulation was repealed to lead to this current crisis, if you could tell us?
What caused this crisis was legislation like the Community Reinvestment Act and hold-overs from the New Deal such as Fanie Mae and Freddie Mac.
And now we are being asked to pony up for a New New Deal? No thank you.
Glass-Steagal. In place for 60 years, then repealed (de-regulation, thank you Phil Gramm for nothin). Many banks crash 10 years later. It don't take a rocket-surgeon to see a relationship there. I'm in favor of de-regulation actually, but I think you need to make sure that consumers (who basically got swindled here) can get their money back.
@JWC
Perhaps a rocket-surgeon would draw the same conclusion you did. An Economist, however, would argue that a barley enforced relect of the post 1929 crash regulating banking and investing houses did not stop the .com bust while it was still on the books. Futhermore the root cause of the current crisis did not stem from the stock market, but from banks, the thousands of banks, that were issuing bad loans to people who should not have received them, at the urging of the U.S. Government.
So, no, sorry. Tossing out the useless and antiquated GSA (which, BTW, one of the original sponsers wanted to repeal soon after having it passed) had nothing to do with the motgage crises started by the CRA and Fannie and Freddie.
Regulation is what is doing us in, not the lack of it, as anyone who is true proponent of deregulation would tell you.
At the company I work for, they generally fire between Monday and Thursday. A Friday firing is unusual. Their logic is it trips up the fired employee since they should be working, but aren't and will encourage them to find another job. Additionally they think firing on a Friday is more dangerous since they have the whole weekend to fume, stew, plot, and plan for a murderous rampage.
So far they haven't had anyone go postal, but I'm a bit surprised by that since the top firing manager of the company is a complete bitch and actually enjoys it. Personally I think the Friday sacking is the better of the two.
Thanks a lot USA! We can always count on you... Good job and congratulations to the Kennedys, Rockefellers and gnerally the bank owners and businessmen behind this fiasco.
@Joe
Sure... the best way to help the economy would be for Uncle Sam to reduce taxes and regulations and get the hell out of the way...
...so that we could invest into new Enron or Bernard Madoff.
Or the government should TAX the hell out of companies that take jobs overseas?! They build products (often of low quality) overseas, pay nothing for it, they're not taxed for bringing it into the US (US based), but they sell it at 10000% margin. Great, no jobs and higher prices. VIVA CAPITALISM!
I would have to disagree, in fact most economists agree that imposing the policy you suggest would be stupid. International trade generally benefits all countries involved.Your suggestion is the equivalent of imposing a tariff on foreign labor, so here is a little education on why this would be bad.
"Except in all but the rarest of instances, tariffs hurt the country that imposes them, as their costs outweigh their benefits. Tariffs are a boon to domestic producers who now face reduced competition in their home market. The reduced competition causes prices to rise. The sales of domestic producers should also rise, all else being equal. The increased production and price causes domestic producers to hire more workers which causes consumer spending to rise. The tariffs also increase government revenues that can be used to the benefit of the economy.
There are costs to tariffs, however. Now the price of the good with the tariff has increased, the consumer is forced to either buy less of this good or less of some other good. The price increase can be thought of as a reduction in consumer income. Since consumers are purchasing less, domestic producers in other industries are selling less, causing a decline in the economy.
Generally the benefit caused by the increased domestic production in the tariff protected industry plus the increased government revenues does not offset the losses the increased prices cause consumers and the costs of imposing and collecting the tariff. We haven't even considered the possibility that other countries might put tariffs on our goods in retaliation, which we know would be costly to us. Even if they do not, the tariff is still costly to the economy. In my article The Effect of Taxes on Economic Growth we saw that increased taxes cause consumers to alter their behavior which in turn causes the economy to be less efficient. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations showed how international trade increases the wealth of an economy. Any mechanism designed to slow international trade will have the effect of reducing economic growth. For these reasons economic theory teaches us that tariffs will be harmful to the country imposing them.
That's how it should work in theory. How does it work in practice?
Empirical Evidence on the Effect of Tariffs on the Country Imposing Them
Study after study has shown that tariffs cause reduced economic growth to the country imposing them. A few of examples:
1. The essay on Free Trade at The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics looks at the issue of international trade policy. In the essay, Alan Blinder states that "one study estimated that in 1984 U.S. consumers paid $42,000 annually for each textile job that was preserved by import quotas, a sum that greatly exceeded the average earnings of a textile worker. That same study estimated that restricting foreign imports cost $105,000 annually for each automobile worker's job that was saved, $420,000 for each job in TV manufacturing, and $750,000 for every job saved in the steel industry."
2. In the year 2000 President Bush raised tariffs on imported steel goods between 8 and 30 percent. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy cites a study which indicates that the tariff will reduce U.S. national income by between 0.5 to 1.4 billion dollars. The study estimates that less than 10,000 jobs in the steel industry will be saved by the measure at a cost of over $400,000 per job saved. For every job saved by this measure, 8 will be lost.
3. The cost of protecting these jobs is not unique to the steel industry or to the United States. The National Center For Policy Analysis estimates that in 1994 tariffs cost the U.S. economy 32.3 billion dollars or $170,000 for every job saved. Tariffs in Europe cost European consumers $70,000 per job saved while Japanese consumers lost $600,000 per job saved through Japanese tariffs.
These studies, like many others, indicate that tariffs do more harm than good. If these tariffs are so bad for the economy, why do governments keep enacting them? We'll discuss that question in the next section."
source: http://economics.about.com/cs/taxpolicy/a/tariffs_2.htm
***it's said that -financial system- will collapse in near future, gov't will try everything to rescue it, but will not succeed***
Hardly a serious problem. Caucasians will never have a problem getting a job in the U.S. even if the government has to make up jobs that are completely useless. Only minorities are at risk of long-term job loss. The main reason why the government couldn't let the auto industry fail was not because of the working-class employees losing their jobs. It was because there are so many white executives at the top of the industry that would lose their jobs. Can't have those multimillionaires losing their cushy jobs and personal-jet flying privileges.
Most of those wonderful Wall Street brokers that helped bring about the collapse of the market and whose firms were bankrupted just upped and moved to other parts of the U.S. at slightly lower salaries to work at other brokerage houses. Big deal. They just traded in their Mercedes for a BMW. I guess that's what's called "roughing it" for certain people. What a laugh.
Monday morning... Australia Day. A day to laze at home and watch DVDs. :D :P