Job Cuts For Dell, Motorola, and Circuit City

maeveth writes "Talk about not a good time to be working in the tech sector. Layoffs all over the industry have been announced, in a variety of different areas. Last week Dell announced they were partnering with Wal-Mart; this week they are planning a ten-percent reduction in their global workforce. Motorola was already going to cut some 3500 jobs by the end of June; they're now adding another 4000 pink slips to that number (and hoping that next month's RAZR2 launch will boost profits). To top it all off Circuit City is acting in a decidedly schizophrenic manner. The are going to axe about 850 employees, on top of the 70 stores they closed last month ... while also planning to open 165 new stores."

Comments

Having worked at Circuit City in the past...

[fiordhraoi]

I worked for Circuit City from about 2000-2002. It was interesting seeing the way things deteriorated.

At first, it was a great part time job for a guy working his way through college. Commission based computer sales, and the commission was more than fair. Then around late 2000 there was a huge shift.

First of all, our store's management staff was almost entirely changed no less than 9 times in 7 months. That's the store manager, assistant manager, and all the department managers. The only role that was relatively "safe" was the AV manager, who got demoted to a sales guy when they brought in someone else, then got promoted again after 3 guys went through that manager role.

Commissions were first cut, then to compound the problem they started flooding the sales floor. Where you used to only have maybe 2 guys in a department during the day and 3-4 at night (depending on the time of year and the department), it became literally 5 during the day and 8 at night. No one was making money on commission anymore, we were just drawing the minimum hourly pay.

Ironically, I think that last move is what really started the store's sales going downhill - no one wants to feel like there's 8 sharks circling for blood/a sale while they're looking at a printer or whatever. Even if the salespeople aren't trying to do so, with 8 of them in a small department, you can't really avoid that feeling.

From one of our assistant managers, I heard that there was some huge politics going on in the regional level in the company. Exactly what, he didn't have details on, but most of the Northeast was going through similar issues (although our store was the worst example he heard of).

Really, I think the problem is that Circuit City hasn't been aggressive enough in its adaptation to new marketplace conditions. It settled for "good enough" for too long, and lost it's momentum.

Disclaimer: I don't hold anything against them, like I said, it was a nice place to work for a while. And at least their problems stemmed from poor organizational practices rather than a crappy attitude toward the consumer. Customer service was at least given more than lip service while I worked there. Granted, it's been 5 years, so things may have changed there too, I'm not sure.

Re:Sorry, this is to please Wall Street only

[JasonB]

And to a certain degree, this is what is driving the private-equity-backed buyouts of publicly traded companies: take them private in order to remove the pressure from the quarterly roller coaster that is Wall Street. In doing so, you give companies the time and space to make long term plans and execute on them. By not having to please Wall Street on an ongoing basis, situations like these may happen a bit less often.

-jason

A more relevant question would be

[WillAffleckUW]

how many employees do they plan to hire in India and China in the next six months, and how many of said new employees were using L-1 and H1-B visas in the US prior to said "downsizing", when it's really outsourcing?

Do an online Yahoo Stock search and check the news and PR items and find the truth.

Meanwhile, Dell opens new R&D center in Bangal

[Palmyst]

May 31, 2007

Dell inaugurated Thursday a new research and development (R&D) facility in Bangalore, India, that can house up to 1,000 staff. The new facility is in line with Dell's plans to make India a hub for the development of enterprise products such as servers, storage, and software. Coincidence? Surely not.

Re:Sorry, this is to please Wall Street only

[lawpoop]

There's a better way. We just haven't thought of it yet. Well, the simplest solution for our current system would be rules and regulations that require you to hold stocks for long periods of time, say months, or even a year or two, before you can sell. That would encourage investors to look at the long-term health and planning of a company, instead of short-term profit.