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AMD To Shed 10% of Its Workforce
stress_life writes "Recent rumors about AMD firing 5% of its workforce proved to be understated. AMD just announced that the company is going to deliver pink slips to 1600-1700 workers, or around 10% of its employees. AMD needs revenue of $2 billion per quarter, but Q1'08 is expected to come in around $1.5 billion. These firings have to be complete by Q3'08, the quarter by which Hector Ruiz promised to be profitable." We most recently discussed AMD's struggles in February.
Depending on the jurisdiction, "laying off" someone is different legally from "firing" them. Where I live, when you fire someone, you have to do it for cause, but you don't have to give notice or pay in lieu of notice; When you lay someone off, you can do it for any reason (or no reason), but you have to give notice or pay in lieu of notice.
http://outcampaign.org/
In the US "firing" is usually taken to mean "for cause" i.e. the employee is being terminated because of insubordination, sexual harassment or some other actionable offense. Whereas a layoff does not imply any misdeeds on the part of the employee.
Further, someone who is laid off is eligible for unemployment compensation.
It's a little more complicated than that.
For one thing, perception of the economy affects the economy - if businesses think that the economy is taking a downturn, they are likely to react accordingly. That sort of thing can actually cause or prolong a recession where there may not have been one or it may have been shorter.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
"Dell Job Cuts to Top 8,800 as U.S. Spending Slows" (Dude! You're getting a pink slip!)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aEO1GX_CC.8U&refer=u...
"Google DoubleClick cuts 300 jobs"
http://www.newsoxy.com/google_doubleclick_cuts_300_jobs/article10671.htm
"Motorola to lay off 2,600 workers"
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-motorola-8k-jobcuts-motap...
"Chrysler Slashing Tech Jobs - The latest cutbacks affect 400 technology workers"
http://www.thecarconnection.com/blog/?p=1095
In other news, according to the NYT:
> The economy shed 80,000 jobs in March, the third consecutive month of rising unemployment, presenting a stark sign that the country may already be in a recession.
> The unemployment rate ticked up to 5.1 percent from 4.8 percent, its highest level since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in September 2005.
> The downturn has even come to San Francisco, where highly trained workers with elite degrees flock to work for some of the world's biggest technology companies. CNet Networks, the online media giant, laid off 10 percent of its staff -- about 120 workers -- this year in an effort to increase profitability and its share price. Yahoo, the search engine company, said it would cut its work force by 1,000.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/business/04cnd-econ.html?em&ex=1207540800&en=c1de4fb13c4ec4bd&ei=5087%0A
No need to speculate, as a public company, executive compensation is public information:
http://amd.edgarpro.com/redirect_frames.asp?filename=0001193125-08-057479.txt&filepath=\2008\03\14\&cols=7%2C0%2C4&SortBy=receivedate&AD=D&startrec=1&res=25&pdf=0
It looks like the executives made ~ $20 million in 2007(including option and stock grants, not just salary, also, the totals are lower than 2006).
I think cutting 1,600 jobs is going to save a bit more than $20 million, probably more than $100 million.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Your examples are good, other than the Google doubleclick one. Google is not laying off these people because they are doing poorly, they're just not needed any more. It's fairly typical of acquisitions, you end up with a bunch of redundant employees and someone has to go.
Also, your link to newsoxy seems to be some kind of spammy site. A better article is here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/03/BUA2VUNAO.DTL&tsp=1
No, Blu-Ray drives (BD-ROM) dropped in price by almost half to make sure that HD-DVD kicked it. If you look at the Blu-Ray DVD Standalone units, they actually went up in price after HD-DVD announced its retreat from the market.
> the covered-up TLB bug which prevents reliable virtualization
Where is this FUD comming from? The bug was never covered up. They delayed production for an entire quarter and publicly announced why. All CPUs have errata, and AMD took a huge hit by doing the responsible thing with disclosure and a delay.
Second of all, AMD provided a BIOS patch to motherboard makers that ships with every K10 capable board. If you want to argue the patch degrades performance or bring up the faster B3 revision, fine. However, don't imply AMD's chips can't do virtualization reliably. The patch completely fixes any chance of a crash from the TLB issue.
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
There is also this:
> "Job security for IT professionals plummeted more than 10% from January to February of this year, far surpassing the average job security declines seen nationwide in a rigorous analysis of U.S. employment patterns."
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/edu/2008/033108ed1.html
And this:
> WSJ: "Government Quietly Changes Rules on Foreign Tech Workers"
> On Friday, DHS issued a press release saying that businesses could now hire foreign students who attended American schools for 29 months without obtaining an H-1B visa,
http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/04/07/government-quietly-changes-rules-on-foreign-tech-workers/?mod=WSJBlog#comment-18914
Do you know how to read? Read some books about CPU design. Then read some prices.
The Opteron (Athlon/Phenom) has the better interconnect, and came out 5 years ago. Intel *might* be bringing out a competitor this year. Or maybe next,
AMD processors scale, since you get double the memory bandwidth with double the processors in a system. Intel's are still choking on a 1980's vintage front side bus. Back in the 90's, AMD had a cross-bar switch. Now they have NUMA.
From what I can see, a Q6600 is 2.4HGz. Mind you, it has 8MB of cache, which helps it along quite a bit, but only if you have one of them in a system.
Would a dual Q660 beat a dual Phenom 9850? OK, it will be called an "Opteron" when it's available next month.
Of course, intel would really like you to buy itanic for multiprocessor systems.
Years of experience with intel, AMD and UltraSPARC systems have taught me that intel processors look and feel impressive on single-user single-tasking jobs. When you add tasks and users, the performance falls away.
But, hey, intel have the brand name and the catchy adverts.
Stick Men
Here at the state university I work for, it is two very different things.
Laid off means that the university just didn't need your specific job anymore, or doesn't have the money to pay you. You get a severance package and other benefits. For example should the department that laid you off open the same (or similar) job within a year, it is automatically yours if you want it. Also you get priority for getting interviews for other jobs on campus. More or less a layoff means "Sorry, we'd like to keep you, but we just can't." You are, of course, eligible for rehire if laid off.
Being fired means you fucked up. It isn't easy to fire someone, there has to be documentation supporting it and such. When you get fired you don't get anything in parting. You are just out the door, and they are going to hire someone else to do your job. You aren't eligible to be rehired.
So yes, in many cases it can be very different.
You forgot 11.
AMD Executives paid themselves MASSIVELY during the quarters when AMD was doing its worst.
http://finance.google.com/group/google.finance.327/browse_thread/thread/372bff68c6244c13
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.