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Massive Layoffs At AOL
JLavezzo writes "Several news sites are reporting that the United States' largest ISP has laid off 750 employees. My sources at AOL put the actual number at approximately 950 regular employees and 300 contractors from various departments including new technology and marketing. The contractors aren't mentioned by the news outlets. Severance packages are known to include up to four months pay and keeping laid off employees on the AOL payroll through February (to retain health insurance). With most of the layoffs coming from the Northern Virginia offices, what are their hopes for finding new jobs?"
It shouldn't take 750 people to run the entire company, let alone having 750 extra people hanging around that they really don't need.
AOL management is as stupid as their users.
What a lovely gift. No?
With most of the layoffs coming from the Northern Virginia offices, what are their hopes for finding new jobs?
What's the point? 950 regular employees were just laid off for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHATSOEVER. What's going to stop the next employer from doing the same thing? What is the point of trying to build a career that can be stolen arbitrarily?
The economy is doing VERY well. AOL is not about to go out of business. They still have millions of subscribers and they are probably earning about $40M a month in subscriber revenue. If the company were about to go out of business, that would be one thing. This is just arbitrary.
It is standard corporate thinking. Just pick 1200 people and fire them. Who the fuck cares if they have mortgages? That's their problem. Short-term money grab thinking.
Disney did the same thing earlier this year. In fact, they fired an ENTIRE STUDIO that was directly responsible for NINE FIGURES in top-line revenue. Why? Because they felt like it.
This is no different. W-4 employment is a sham. No business would ever depend on a similar agreement for anything, especially anything upon which revenue depends. W-4 employment is unfair and obsolete, and layoffs like these are cruel, groundless and destructive.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I know that you're trying to be funny, but you may be more right than you know. Why do we automatically assume that most of the people being let go are actually technology workers? The vast majority of those people being laid off are probably regular Joe, non high-tech workers. Some of which are will probably be fine pushing paper elsewhere.
It's always a sad thing when someone gets laid off, but it's been a long time coming at AOL. They've been hemorraging money and, IMHO, being irresponsible with their money by not cutting costs and downsizing.
I predict that Time Warner (formerally AOL Time Warner) will soon be selling off the AOL division and is trimming the fat first. After being sold, AOL would probably become what just another brand name for internet service. AOL offers almost zero value to Time Warner... and Time Warner investors lost tons of money in the merger. (AOL investors, still losing lots of money, didn't lose as much as they otherwise would have because of the merger cushioning the fall of overvalued AOL)
When will AOL learn. People are leaving because competitors are offering cheaper and faster services. If you want to stay competitive, lower your prices. People are not going to continue to pay $23.90/mon. when they can get DSL for a couple dollars more, or dial-up for less than $10/mon.
On the one hand, I feel really bad for all those people having to find places to go in the NOVA job market. Right before the holidays too, raw deal.
On the other hand, I bet that whinny, nasally actress in the commercials playing the mother sneaking into the AOL boardroom is having a fantasic Christmas. She's probably making tons in residuals for one or two days work.
AOL must have spent hundreds of millions broadcasting those commericals, I hardly even watch TV and see them all the time. It's almost as bad as the promotional CDs that still pile up everywhere in my home.
1999 taught me never to trust a company that spends that heavily on marketing.
M
As someone who has one of those juicy government contracting jobs, I can tell you that they're a hell of a lot easier to get once you have one of those juicy government security clearances.
In Soviet Russia, vodka would solve this and any other stressful situation.
Apple. March 14, 1997. That was massive layoffs.
This? Not a big deal, by comparison. I don't think the headline is misleading, but it is a little sensationalist.
I feel for those losing their jobs. hopefully they land on their feet and get decent separation packages.
I guess that I got lucky. My current employer was willing to hire me for a position that required a DoD clearance even though I didn't have one yet. I was young and willing to work for less money than I was worth because of the missing clearance. It took about 7 months for me to get my clearance, and in the past two years my salary has caught up to what I feel I'm worth to the company.
Oh god that's scary. A fairly famous programmer can't get work, and we're supposed to compete right out of college?
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Since when is 750 a massive amount of peole. Kodak was laying off 1000 people every 4 months up in Rochester, and about another 2000 worldwide.
He tells me that he expects nullsoft to be terminated soon because it's definately not making them any money
This was rumored for a while, right? Like these articles from 3 weeks ago.
The Winamp guys have my sympathy, but they will find jobs if they try hard enough. If I can get a job (Laid off twice since 2000, I will be laid off next year, my coworkers are leaving for other jobs before they get laid off), the programmers of one of the most famous pieces of software will also find jobs.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
No, you'll get a job because you're fresh ... thus easier to pay. A Famous Programmer will want twice what a college grad will get...
Who doesn't like free music?
What is with all the posts blaming this a sour economy?
It is NOT an economic failing when an antiquated dealer of yesterdays technology downsizes...And then eventually goes away.
Think about it. A majority of people are hooking up with local broadband dealers (cable, dsl, wireless), I would not be surprised to see AOL go the way of the Cart and Buggy dealers of old....And it will not be the economy that does them in, it will be the fact that their main product is obsolete.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I just heard on NPR that there is a "shortage" of blue collar jobs. It seems right now there is a glut of education in this country, possibly due to offshoring. Maybe its time to stuff our degrees away for a while until the next boom hits.
Table-ized A.I.
Ahhh Christmas in George Bush's America. I can practically smell the trashcan fires burning.
A. For someone who knows both an open source technology and a technology that most open source advocates would rather gouge their eyes out than look at,
B. For someone with a computer background in Orange County,
C. For someone with a computer background in Orange County,
D. All of the above.
Don't list MS SQL. SQL is SQL, for the most part, administration notwithstanding, and it isn't hard to learn administration, generally. Heck, don't list ASP, either. Advertise a position for PHP/MySQL. Then tell them the bad news at the interview.... Break it to them gently that they'll be expected to learn Microsoft's buggy, security-hole-ridden equivalents as well.
The point is that somebody with PHP/MySQL experience should be able to pick up ASP/MS SQL pretty easily, but they won't ever get past your HR department's radar because they'll be looking for a web designer with ASP and MS SQL experience when what you really want is a programmer with some experience at web design and database management.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Right!
VA Gov. John Warner was the one making the
big announcement. The jobs are with DHS,
and will require TS or better security
clearances. If you are exiting the military
with a TS clearance, are in IT, and have an
MSCE (DHS is MS OS-centric), then NoVA is
the place for you.
I seriously doubt that the ex-AOL staffers that
just got RIFfed would be likely to have that
particular "skill set".
It is my understanding that a TS security
clearance might take 18 - 24 months these
days, particularly if it's Poly/LifeStyle.
Generally, it is the employer (read here
government contractor) that picks up the
cost for the background investigation --
often as much as $50K USD. That contractor
has got to want you pretty bad to put you
on the payroll for that period of time, and
incur that expense, without having you doing
the work their contracted for. I believe
that that is why I have seen the exact same
job postings on "WPost.com" for the past
1 to 1-1/2 years. If you have the security
clearance, then everyone is knocking on your
door. But if you don't have one, you are SOL.
What it really works out to is a Catch-22
Scenario. And when the employers advertise
for a "transferable" security clearance, I
think they are blowing smoke -- the clearance
is for a specific employer and specific function.
If you're not trolling, which I believe you are, you should post a link or contact information so people can actually apply if any slashdot readers fit. How exactly do you expect anyone to send you a resume based on that vague anonymous coward post?
Sounds more like your company is rejecting qualified candidates for ridiculous reasons so you can claim you have to hire H1B's.
Do you rule out everybody that doesn't happen to live right next to you already, and reject someone with years of ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, and MySQL experience because their resume doesn't say MS SQL?
When a company says they can't find anyone qualified, it's usually either a lie or a bottom 20% company refusing to hire anything but a top 20% employee. Be realistic. The human resources practices that dominate American business are quite inefficient. It's usually better to train imperfect people than to wait for the guy that exactly matches your huge list of requirements.
Because the BANK wanted to see the PAYCHECK from AOL as proof they could make the PAYMENTS.
That's between you and the bank, AOL had nothing to do with it. When you get a mortgage, you also must sign a piece of paper saying you read all the documents and understand them. There's nothing in those documents that says that AOL is responsible for the mortgage. YOU are.
So the employee gets fired and... AOL saves money The bank gets the house The employee gets SHIT That's called unfair.
Nobody failed to live up to their agreements, except the employee. Why is that unfair to the employee? What would be unfair is AOL being forced to pick up the slack for an employee's irresponsibility.
The employee did nothing except show up and do a good job.
The employee should try reading and comprehending the contracts he signs. This wasn't a case of fine print or trickery. When you buy a mortgage, most financial advisors recommend that you save up at least 6 months of expenses first. That way, you can survive temporary interruptions in your income, or at least it will give you time to sell the house properly. At the very least, such minimal prudence won't leave you in a bad bargaining position. If you can't do that, don't buy a mortgage.
You are likely joking, but really a lot of people live very close to thier means, or even past it.
The minute they start making any significant amount over what thier used to after graduation they go out and run up credit card bills, buy toys, a nice car a nicer house, and so on.
If they were to keep thier standards of living simular to what they had in college till all thier student loans were paid off and just save any extra and keep thier outgo (especially long term outgo such as house payments) down below what others at the same income level are doing they would find themselves much better off. Keep a credit card if you must, but never put on it more than you can pay off when the bill comes in.
You'd be suprised how much you can save.
I saved about $3k in 8 months on a 24k a year job by simply not replacing my pos car right when I could, never using a credit card, not buying every toy I saw, not having cable tv, no longer trying to have a bleeding edge PC (I've given in a little there since then). I didn't really short myself much (not having cable tv GAVE me time as well as freed up $$) I still ate out some, hung out with my friends, saw a few movies, bought a few games and read several good books.
Of course if you have kids soon out of college the picture changes more than a little bit.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
I think they just gave you that as an excuse.
If that was software that YOU wrote then they're probably more concerned with your reactions to anything they might ask you to do with the code, fearing you might dissagree with something and start in on "I WROTE this so I know your wrong and I'm right", or possibly that you might think your intimate knowledge deserves more pay than they want to spend (which it likely would to be honest).
Also the fact that you're going from a one man company to an employee makes them wonder if your not planning on quiting as soon as things get better and possibly taking any clever ideas they've shown you into a new product based on your old one plus thier 'trade secrets'.
I could see where they could view hiring you as like hiring another employees s.o./ex-s.o. (and the way some people are about thier code it could be worse!).
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea