Layoffs at Microsoft, Intel, and IBM

Normally I try to avoid posting straight business news, but I think that these 3 stories combine to something meaningful. Muleguy noted Microsoft is laying off 5,000, Mspangler reports that Intel is cutting 5-6k, while nonyabidness afraid4myjob submitted that IBM Layoffs have begun with no number, but estimates as high as 16,000.

Comments

well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck. Thank you world economy.

Re:well...

[palegray.net]

I don't think the parent understands the meaning of sarcasm.

Re:well...

[Tweenk]

Huh? I thought it was the unregulated American financial sector that caused this world-scale shitstorm. Way to shift blame.

Re:well...

[jlarocco]

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - the two firms most responsible for the "crisis" (they were the ones buying shit mortgages and loans from everybody) - are practically owned and run by the government. That's what the "Federal" in "Federal National Mortgage Association" and "Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation" means. You don't get more regulated than that.

But nice FUD.

Re:well...

[quarterbuck]

Nitpick
China did not buy much of mortgage backed securities - they did not need to, since most of banking and social security out there is government controlled. The gulf investors did buy tons of it though
On the other hand China did buy trillions of government debt from US. This allowed them to export tons of stuff into US while keeping a fixed exchange rate. And before you go Caveat Emptoring them, remember that they have not yet played their hands -- they could always dump that debt back on the market at any time.
And about "economies being separated the way they should be " - such strict separation only leads to eternal poverty for poor countries and slow decay for the rich. Japan may be the only country in the world to develop in relative isolation (not after 1945, but their first industrialisation).

Re:well...

[Dutch Gun]

The sad truth of the matter is that many will simply blame the "underregulated American financial sector", while never stopping to consider that if the government hadn't mandated high-risk loans (with guarantees by the government), we would never have had a mortgage crisis to begin with. It's a convenient mantra that fits nicely into a pre-conceived viewpoint, but I have a hard time understanding how people can't connect the dots logically. How does one view the cooked books at Fanny & Freddy, the bribes and back-room deals, etc, and not come to the conclusion that this collapse was triggered by government interference into the natural checks and balances of a healthy free market for social engineering purposes?

Remember when it was actually pretty hard to get a home loan? It was hard because private institutions, when they take on all the risk of the loan, want to ensure there's a very good chance you'll be paying it all back. When you remove those natural safeguards via a government mandate / insurance policy, it's inevitable that the system will eventually implode under its own weight when, not all that surprisingly, too many people with high-risk loans end up defaulting.

No one wants to talk about this, but a number of Republicans (McCain was one) have been warning of an impending sub-prime-loan-based disaster for years. But our esteemed Democrat leaders such as Barney Frank wouldn't hear of it. And now the country is trusting the same guys who precipitated this mess to fix it? The Republicans have their share of issues, but they certainly seem to have a better handle on the reality of a free-market-based economy than most Democrats.

Re:well...

[Grishnakh]

So, most of us were "put out of business" by big farms, but now we do other things and (judging by waistlines) eat better than ever.

There's a difference between being put out of business, and choosing a different and better-paying profession.

And American waistlines are bigger than ever because our food is all crap, loaded with high-fructose corn syrup, trans fats, MSG, and other unnatural things. Americans ate a lot better 100 years ago than they do now. Millions of obese people, with obesity caused by drinking sodas and junk food, is not an indicator of "eating well".

Remember the Irish potato famine - over-reliance on local food has risks, too.

The Potato Famine was caused by many things, but somehow during that time, Ireland exported tons of potatoes to England, even though its own people were starving. That says to me that relying on locally-produced food wasn't the problem, it was economics and politics. If they had kept their food at home, they wouldn't have had a famine.

Finally, while the US is lucky enough to have arable land in varied climates, most countries aren't - should Panamanians eat bananas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

So you don't think Panamanians have fish in the water surrounding them on both sides? People in tropical regions got along just fine nutritionally before modern times, they just didn't eat the same foods as they do now. Buying imported food (in any country) should be considered a luxury for people that can afford it and want to spend the money on it, not a necessity that all people can demand as a right. Just because I live in the US doesn't mean I have a right to cheap bananas (which don't grow here).

Re:well...

[Grishnakh]

That's because the Democrats are intent on moving us away from a free-market-based economy, to a socialized economy with the government controlling everything. So they engineered a crisis, and then when it exploded, they blamed it on the free market (which didn't really exist because of the government's meddling), and tell us the solution is more government meddling and control in the form of bailouts, government ownership, etc.

The fact that the economy was already in trouble because of poor actions by the Republicans in power (namely, the war we can't afford) made it easy to blame the whole mess on the Republicans, when in reality, both parties are to blame for this mess.

WTF is up with IBM?

[Prien715]

So yesterday, IBM posted great profits that beat wall street estimates. And today they're doing layoffs? That makes no financial sense to me. Why should any company lay off people just because "Everyone else is doing it"?

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[SatanicPuppy]

I don't know about Intel or Microsoft, but IBM is at a 20 year high for employment; the highest since it dropped 150k workers in the 90's.

Even though they managed to pull some solid growth last year, they're on the heavy side for a significant down turn. For a company that deals in services and hardware, it'd be shortsighted not to tighten up a bit.

Still, no fun. I sympathize with the workers over there. (Before anyone starts calling me heartless; I work for a newspaper company. My department has lost almost 70% of it's staff in the last 3 years. )

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[h4rm0ny]

Well I'm not saying this is the case, but a theory would be that if everyone else is in trouble, even if IBM is not, then demand for IBM's services will go down. My sympathy to anyone who has lost their job though.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Bert64]

Because culling the lowest 5-10% performing staff is good for the overall business, and now is the perfect time to do that because the story of your job cuts will get lost among all the other stories about job cuts and not cause you as much bad publicity.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[momerath2003]

I work for a newspaper company. My department has lost almost 70% of it's staff in the last 3 years.

Well, with apostrophe errors like that, it's no surprise to me!

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Skreems]

Sadly it sounds like that's not what they're doing. The articles and the leaked Balmer memo mention a number of divisions that will be included in the cuts, and product development is suspiciously lacking. It sounds like they're cutting all the fringe divisions (legal, HR, R&D, etc) and leaving the developers alone entirely. Which is really a shame, since they have a number of completely incompetent devs who need to go as well.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Richard Steiner]

Don't know how it works at the there companies mentioned in the header, but it's been my experience that layoffs at many companies are based on seniority, not job performance. The jumior people tend to get the axe.

Sometimes those people are the weakest link, but sometimes they aren't.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Touvan]

I don't know how directly this relates to you personally (probably not much), but there are some up and coming organizations that I think are doing better reporting than most dead tree presses I'm aware of - arstechnica.com is my prime example. They usually provide context, and aren't afraid to draw obvious conclusions - both of which are sorely lacking in "old" media like newspapers, tv and radio (Bill Moyers is an exception to that statement - the only one I can think of).

At Ars the writers actually seem to understand the topics they write about. How many paper writers out there could you say that about?

(Note: I don't have any affiliation with Ars, I've just been very impressed with them as of late - and I hope they make a boat load of money.)

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[theaveng]

That's the problem right there. Business ALWAYS over-extends itself. In good times, they open tons of new factories and rather than hire some Americans who are ought of work, these businesses insist upon brining-in foreign labor.

Then they turn-around and lay them all off, and what's left are foreigners living off the dole. I think when the economy is booming, the government should say, "No imported workers. Hire some of the unemployed Americans and get them off the government's payroll."

ASIDE:

I was recently laid-off. I had a phone interview for a temporary job, and now they want to interview me in person which is an unusual move for a temp job. The catch: I have to drive 14 hours from PA to NH without any kind of reimbursement, and frankly it's unlikely I'll get the job anyway. Would you be willing to go to an interview w/o reimbursement, for a temporary 6-9 month job?

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[theaveng]

I'm looking forward to this line:

"U.S. Government announces it will layoff 50% of its staff and use the excess money to payoff the national debt & eventually lower income taxes." Of course that will never happen; either in a bad economy or a good economy. Politicians don't know how to reduce spending.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[daem0n1x]

Ah, I love the smell of Capitalism in the morning!

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Lord Ender]

I've got news for you, kid: After firing the 10% worst-performing staff, a company STILL has a 10% worst-performing staff, along with newly lowered moral.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[diamondsw]

> IBM is at a 20 year high for employment; the highest since it dropped 150k workers in the 90's.

Yes, but where? We've done a huge amount of hiring in India, Argentina, and Brazil, and have been laying off US employees left and right.

We are absolutely cut to the bone in the US, and have been mildly dysfunctional for the last couple years as a result. Every time you try to get anything done, people have either been laid off or reorg'ed to death, and no one knows who to talk to anymore. Last year I was reorg'ed four times, and I can't even tell you who I report to beyond my first-line manager (seriously - I don't know off-hand).

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[murdocj]

I had a boss who thought like that. He wanted to annually cut the bottom 10%. The problem is defining who that bottom 10% is... some of his buddies were jerks who deserved to disappear, but no chance they would go. Not to mention this constant mentality of "we have to fire people" is horrible for morale.

Basically the people who get fired are the ones farthest from the boss who wants to do the firing. He just tells everyone they have to fire 10%, and then he gets to sleep well at night, while everyone else suffers the agonies of the damned.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[jcr]

Personally I will never hire an ex-Microsoftie; they don't have morals or ethics that are worth a damn, or they wouldn't have worked there in the first place.

I'm not willing to categorically eliminate tens of thousands of people like that. I've worked in enough organizations to realize that no matter how fucked up a company may be, any individual working there can still be competent.

-jcr

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Unnngh!]

My recollection is that the IBM layoffs of yesteryear focused heavily on senior staff, cutting many of their jobs to avoid paying pensions. They hired a lot of the people back as contractors afterward. I wouldn't bet on the junior staff being at the heavy end of the cut...

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Anonymous Coward]

hey man everyone who actually works for ibm knows that the real bloat is up top. if ibm wanted to save money they would take the ax to the ridiculous tripple tiered management. then you wouldnt need to make excuses for getting rid of your best guys. (and they were the best)

stop drawing blood from the stone already and cut all the fat from up top. Why does every customer need 3 project mgrs??? why are new tools introduced and the old ones not repaired? why is every data center walk through an exercise in tickling 10 managers butts with a feather?

its only a matter of time before they begin to feed on themselves.

bunch of "personalities"

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Aceticon]

Unfortunately most companies have a terrible record of cutting away the muscle along with the fat when doing a big downsizing.

The truth is, the way it usually goes is that:

• Whole departments/groups are fired, competent people, incompetent people and everybody in between, all together. Badly managed teams will be thrown out, even if some (most) of the non-management people are competent.
• The reasons for dismissal of someone are not explained to the ones that stay. Being fired or not starts getting perceived as a competence-independent event. A climate of fear and backstabbing ensues. The best people start looking for new jobs. The few companies that adopt a counter-cyclical posture and increase hiring start poaching the "star players" from the ones doing the downsizing.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Personally I will neverhire an ex-Microsoftie; they don't have morals or ethics that are worth a damn, or they wouldn't have worked there in the first place.

s'okay. Fortunately for the world, with an attitude like that, chances are high that you'll never be in a position to make that kind of decision.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[homer_s]

what's left are foreigners living off the dole.

I'm on H1b. If I lose my job, I have to either find another job or be out of the country in a week.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[jcnnghm]

You might not like it, but it does work. From 1980 to 1985, Jack Welch reduced GE from 411,000 employees, to 299,000 employees, while substantially increasing their market capitalization. Plenty of people thrive in highly competitive, pressured environments. In my experience, the ones that don't are the ones that prefer "group work" as it allows them to more easily pass the buck to the people that actually perform.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[murdocj]

Well, I've seen it once, and I can guarantee you it didn't work. In our case, we had already had pretty massive layoffs, so any deadwood was long gone. The basic problem is that you probably aren't going to get rid of the lowest performing 10%, you're gone to get rid of the 10% that the boss doesn't know or doesn't care about, regardless of how valuable those people are.

And on a basic level, I strongly object to the idea that it's a good business practice to just keep turning up the heat on your employees. I worked for many, many years for a very successful company that thrived because we kept a strong, informed staff that knew how to work together. We were acquired by a "high pressure, gotta deliver now, fire the bottom 10%, no time to do it right just do it!" company ,and the result was dismal failure after dismal failure. So to say the least, I'm not impressed.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[jcnnghm]

You're right, they're only the worlds third largest company, after Exxon Mobil and Petrochina, and second in the BrandZ (brand recognition) ranking to Google. Oh wait...

From Wikipedia, "GE, which was a conglomerate long before the term was coined, is arguably the most successful organization of this type."

Welch left GE in 2001, when they were doing significantly better than they are even today.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[hobo sapiens]

Everything that is old is new again, including the classic IBM joke:

Two lions escape from the zoo. They decide to split up and meet back in two months to see how the other is doing.

Two months later, one lion is scrawny and beat up, the other is fat and happy. The scrawny beat up lion says, "I went to the park and started eating children. The police and national guard came after me and I haven't stopped running since. How are you so well fed?"

The second lion replies, "Easy! I Just hid outside the IBM office and ate a manager every day. Nobody even noticed!"

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[jcnnghm]

And on a basic level, I strongly object to the idea that it's a good business practice to just keep turning up the heat on your employees. I worked for many, many years for a very successful company that thrived because we kept a strong, informed staff that knew how to work together. We were acquired by a "high pressure, gotta deliver now, fire the bottom 10%, no time to do it right just do it!" company ,and the result was dismal failure after dismal failure. So to say the least, I'm not impressed.

That's probably because you don't have a strong enough personality for it, and the organization wasn't structured for it. Welch wasn't big on firing the grunts, he fired the bottom-performing 10% of managers. Performance motivated people need to be in place for the system to work. Strong performers loved to work at GE under Welch because they were promoted quickly and paid accordingly, with brutal honesty respected more than gushy crap.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Locke2005]

Personally I will neverhire an ex-Microsoftie; they don't have morals or ethics that are worth a damn, or they wouldn't have worked there in the first place. I beg to differ with you. While that may be true of their marketing people, I have known many very talented engineers and wonderful human beings who have gone on to work at Microsoft. So many that it continues to puzzle me why Microsoft, which such a huge talent pool to draw on, still continues to churn out crappy products. My best guesses are 1) Too frequent shifts of focus and priority, and 2) development driven by marketing demands, not by engineering or customer satisfaction. Microsoft, IBM, and Intel all share an uncanny ability to continuously re-invent themselves; despite inevitable downturns, I'm sure all three companies will be around for a long time.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[LackThereof]

Would you be willing to go to an interview w/o reimbursement, for a temporary 6-9 month job?

At this point? Sure.

I'm unemployed, not like I have anything better to do with my day.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Grishnakh]

As much as I would like to agree, I can't. The problem with this is that you can't just pick some random American and expect him to do some technical job requiring a serious education. Remember, since companies have been hiring H1Bs for so long (since before I started college, long ago), fewer and fewer American students have been going into "hard" professions, namely engineering, and have opted for other professions where they weren't so likely to be laid off at the first hint of economic problems. As a result, when companies want to hire engineers, the only place they can get them is from other countries, where people train in engineering in large numbers (China and India, mainly). When I was in engineering school in the 90s, probably less than half my classmates were American; many were not immigrants, but students on F-1 student visas. In graduate school, the numbers were even worse, as most Americans, wanting to make money (and needing to pay back student loans), opt to go straight into the workforce rather than spend more time starving in graduate school.

If you want to hire someone to do, for instance, deep submicron IC design, or even just "simply" VLSI design with Verilog, you can't just take some laid-off autoworker from Detroit and train him to do this in a week (or a month, or a year, etc.). It would be like trying to retrain some guy to be a physician. These jobs require many years of education. A smart society would value workers with technical skills, and find some way of protecting them from job loss every time the economy turns sour (about every 5-10 years), and reward them well so they don't decide it's better to just become real estate agents or start their own companies installing pools (as engineers I've met have done). Our society isn't that smart. What's the solution for this? I really don't know; they tried a command economy in the Soviet Union a while back, where high-level scientists were kept employed doing scientific work no matter what, but obviously that system didn't work out too well. But our system doesn't seem to work that well either, as it's short-sighted, and doesn't reward people for doing difficult (but non-managerial) technical jobs.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Grishnakh]

Joking aside, most of the "journalism" I read today from major news outlets is filled with apostrophe errors, spelling errors, grammar errors, and just plain poor writing style. Go back 25 years or more and compare newspapers from then with newspapers from today; today's "journalists" can't write for shit. My local paper is even worse: "too-to-two" errors, words left out, just plain unintelligible writing, and more.

Newspapers aren't just being killed by the internet; they're being killed because no one wants to pay for such poor quality writing any more, especially when many papers are so blatantly biased in their reporting.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[homer_s]

The kind of people breaking immigration laws are people who work in hourly jobs/etc. The engineers who're here are not going to stick around with no job - they can go back home and earn more money with their 'US experience'. And even if they stay here, they cannot collect any dole.

I'm generally against protectionism, but in a recession,

If protectionism is good in a recession, then it must be good all the time! I have no problem with people who oppose free trade. I'll tell them they're wrong, but atleast they are consistent.
The people who are selective in their views on trade are the ones I watch out for - "trade in A, which I consume, is good, but trade in B, which I produce, is bad".

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[mdf356]

Posted results are the past. Layoffs are based on expectations of the future.

Last summer at raise time they told IBMers that the new raise package was based on the expectation of future revenue, and since it wasn't looking good, the raises were small. Now IBM made more than expected, but everyone who got shafted by the raise won't see it.

Posted results are great -- except that they don't make up for an (undeservedly) low raise. Who do you think will see the unexpected money earned in Q4... the rank-and-file, or the executives and shareholders?

I'm glad I got out.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[H1b]

It's interesting how you refer to the foreign workers as leeches because they are anything but that. They pay social security tax and unemployment taxes just as domestic workers do, except they are not entitled any benefits from either unless they become permanent residents. Not to mention the 3-4K visa fees that the employer has to pay for their visa renewal every three years, don't you think that's accounted for in their package. Also a large part of the foreign workforce are people who went to school at some stage in this country, guess how much they "contributed" to your financial aid packages.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[DragonWriter]

Who do you think will see the unexpected money earned in Q4... the rank-and-file, or the executives and shareholders?

The system isn't called "capitalism" because it favors labor, you know.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[emaname]

This is the same as the brilliant GE management philosophy of Jack Welch. This man was one of the most ignorant, self-serving CEO's of our time. I say that because he ALWAYS went after the short term gains and that's part of why GE sucks so bad right now. He left Immelt with an impending corporate meltdown (ie, a big business that was primarily a bank with some other smaller ops). Any manager that buys into any of Welch's BS should be publicly humiliated.

I worked with an aggressive, high-tech, medical electronics company that prided itself on running lean and mean and we exceled. Certainly there were times when we were over-whelmed, but we almost never had any layoffs of any significant number of employees. That's because management understood how to avoid becoming too over-staffed and sloppy. We were all paid fairly well and had great benefits with some phenomenal perks (wine coolers and beer on tap in the cafeteria, an incredible fitness room, and company parties that would blow the doors off anybody else's). Then we were bought out by GE. What an incredibly assinine management philosophy they have! In no time at all, a company that was number one in several product areas was destroyed and morale was in the toilet.

Firing the bottom 10% is a horrible, dim-witted concept primarily because of the damage it does to morale. If a company wants to cut costs, they need to start at the top. Travel only if absolutely necessary. Learn to use telecons. All execs take a pay cut. No bonuses. (I believe there shouldn't be bonuses for anyone making >100k. First of all, they are getting paid that much to do that job. Second of all, if you can't make ends meet and still set money aside, you need to see a financial counselor. Third, it increases potential for a huge division between workers and management and sets the stage for a union intrusion.)

And don't even start telling me about how bonuses are necessary to remain competitive. That is an absolute line of trash that is promulgated by other execs that serve on each others boards. These guys want that lie to prevail so they can continue to justify obscene bonuses. Meanwhile everyone else loses their jobs. It's time to hire execs that want to do a good job motivated by the desire to create a secure business that will result in job security for the employees and a good value for the customer.

Be embarassed, American businessmen. Be very embarassed. You were all contributors to this financial mess just as much as all the sheeple that just had to have that big SUV or that bigger home or the second 4-wheel ATV or the Prada purse (excuse me, "handbag"). American culture is in the trash heap along with its TV reality shows and American Idol. We've become a society of victims that always wants someone to do things for us and always wants more "stuff" or wants instant fame just because they think they can sing or dance. If we had any backbone we would have stuffed the immoral execs in the trash heap of history and sent all the materialistic dolts out for psychotherapy or spiritual counseling.

Hey, Barack. As far as I'm concerned, there damn well better be change, but not by coddling the already infantilized American citizen. We need to re-establish a sense of real ethics and values. What the American citizen needs now is a hard smack up side the head and then get all the lobbyists out of Washington. Put THEM out of THEIR jobs. And reign in the greed that is so prevalent amongst our business executives. Don't let businesses and consumers run our country. Let's take it back. Of the people, for the people, by the people. Does anybody remember that concept?

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[Ash Vince]

Also remember that they came here for a reason, quite often it was more money. If they have savings it is quite possible they will go further in the country they came from. This is especially true if they have been sending money home to their families as is quite often the case. You go home to a warm welcome and see the place and people you have been missing while abroad.

If all you could get was low skilled work of the kind that illegal immigrants are stuck with why stay. You will probably have to vastly change your life style anyway as you could not afford the same rent and outgoings on below minimum wage as you could while doing a highly skilled job that got you an H1B in the first place.

No, most illegals overstay student visas or just jump the non existent fences. They are the people willing to clean your pool for a pittance, not they guy who has been working as an architect, software developer, engineer, doctor or accountant.

Re:WTF is up with IBM?

[GaryPatterson]

It's probably the use of the word "sheeple."

It's slang for "I'm far better than you" and tends to put people off. I know I stopped reading right there, which was a shame because the post was good up to that point.

Consider it ammo

[ColonelPanic]

There's 5,000 new empty chairs to fling around in Redmond!

Re:Consider it ammo

[SterlingSylver]

Are they cutting 5,000 jobs to free up chairs, or are they down 5,000 chairs so they need to cut jobs?

Some perspective.

[Albanach]

Microsoft are cutting up to 5,000 from a total of 90,000 employees - 5.5% of its workforce.

IBM might cut 16,000 from a workforce of 387,000, a cut of 4%.

Intel are cutting up to 6,000 from a workforce of 84,000 - 7% of jobs.

Re:Some perspective.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some more perspective: H-1B program still going strong, with up to 65,000 visas for 2009! (more if you include the universities, which are exempt from the cap as they work only for the public good, with no self-interest whatsoever.

Step 1 to help employment: stop issuing H-1B visas. Period. No exceptions, no delay.

Re:Some perspective.

[jcr]

Do the words "Smoot-Hawley" mean anything to you?

International trade is good for overall productivity, whether we're talking about commodities or services.

-jcr

Re:Some perspective.

[morgan_greywolf]

Agreed, partly. 1) That doesn't mean we should be providing tax incentives for businesses that outsource to India, either. 2) H1-B visas aren't trade per se. 65,000 H1-Bs for IT workers means 65,000 domestic IT workers without a job. 65,000 TVs imported from China, OTOH, create more jobs than they cost.

Re:Some perspective.

[jcr]

I will concur that our tax system is severely broken. American workers are the most productive in the world, and if we had a rational tax system (like, corporate tax rates at least as low as Europe), that would remove most of the incentive for offshore production.

65,000 H1-Bs for IT workers means 65,000 domestic IT workers without a job

It's not that simple. A lot of those visas do in fact go to workers for jobs that an employer can't fill locally. It's like claiming that if we forced all the Mexicans to go home, that Americans would take the fruit-picking jobs.

-jcr

Re:Some perspective.

[gad_zuki!]

>It's not that simple. A lot of those visas do in fact go to workers for jobs that an employer can't fill locally.

Yeah right. Im sure thats true a certain percentage of the time but the scenario "why pay someone 80k when we can get a slave for 24k" plays itself out too.

Re:Some perspective.

[rezalas]

Perhaps you should take your close minded judgmental bullshit back to the 20th century where it belongs? Or instead, we could realize that locals get priority over foreign workers in other countries and the US is one of the only ones where its citizens don't seem to give a damn about their neighbor and yet care deeply for someone else on another continent who wants their neighbors job.

Re:Some perspective.

[fishbowl]

"It's like claiming that if we forced all the Mexicans to go home, that Americans would take the fruit-picking jobs."

If it were more affordable to live on a piece of property big enough, in a good climate that can support citrus trees, more Americans might pick their own fruit. Excuse me while I go out and grab some oranges off my tree, I need to make some marmalade.

Re:Some perspective.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right. Im sure thats true a certain percentage of the time but the scenario "why pay someone 80k when we can get a slave for 24k" plays itself out too.

The problem with H1-Bs is that both of you are right. You're giving two extreme sides of a continuous spectrum of arguments. Increasing supply of labor with constant demand will lower equilibrium price, so yes you can get wage slaves. Likewise, decreasing supply will raise price, so you'll get Americans demanding $10/hr to tend fields.

Neither of these scenarios are wrong, it's a comparatively simple market situation. But the government is going to have to clarify what it means by "no available person" to fill a job. At what price? It's the law that's out of touch with economics.

Re:Some perspective.

[highfidelitychris]

Microsoft are cutting up to 5,000 from a total of 90,000 employees - 5.5% of its workforce.

IBM might cut 16,000 from a workforce of 387,000, a cut of 4%.

Intel are cutting up to 6,000 from a workforce of 84,000 - 7% of jobs.

Microsoft is only cutting 2000 to 3000 though in the long run. And the cuts will take over 18 months. They are getting rid of 1800 today, which will be the bulk of their layoffs. The rest is basically getting rid of bloat in one department to hire in another. It's not much of a net loss after today.

Re:Some perspective.

[dwarg]

Do the words "Smoot-Hawley" mean anything to you?

Well Smoot was a cornerback with the Minnesota Vikings for a while, but he's best known for the "love-boat" scandal that made the team a laughing stock.

And Hawley Minnesota is a small town near my hometown that we played high school football against.

So I guess it has something to do with international recognition of Minnesota football?

Re:Some perspective.

[Chabo]

More perspective: Intel says that those jobs are "affected", not "terminated" or "cut".

Intel is actively trying to make sure those people aren't cut, but rather just moved to another facility. They're just temporarily consolidating their labor into fewer plants, since the need for production has been scaled back.

Disclaimer: I work for Intel, but I don't have any more information about this than the general public does. The only difference is that I knew about this last week, before it was made public.

Re:Some perspective.

[rickb928]

Not quite.

Maine is known, among other things, for the blueberry crop. This used to be picked mostly by Micmac Indians from Maine and Canada, and high-schoolers (like me) and other locals that would do what is by any measure back-breaking work for pretty good pay. I made $600 a week for a month in 1970-1972. Not bad for a student. The majority of the crop was picked that way through the 80's.

Today, maybe a fifth is picked by hand, and most of that by Hispanic migrants. The Micamcs mostly pick on an Indian reservation farm.

The reality is that the major producers prefer migrant workers from away for several reasons. The one I hear the most is 'lower pay'. Just the way it is.

I hear a complaint sometimes that migrants, illegals, etc. take jobs Americans won't do. Mostly, I suspect this is because we 'Americans' don't want to do some jobs for the pay some employers want to pay. Not the same thing as 'not wanting' a job. How did toilets get cleaned before we had a serious illegal immigrant problem?

But the H1-B problem is a particularly nasty slap in the face. There are so many stories of qualified citizens not able to find work in fields where H1-B workers were being recruited that I'm not going to list any. Not hard to find.

I work for a company that uses both H1-B and other immigrants liberally for many sorts of IT work. Many of us are at a loss to explain how they can claim there are no US citizens available for the wor, the skill set is not unique, and neither is the workload.

One clever way around that they use is to contract with an offshore firm. No justification needed. the biggest number of these offshore workers are part of, you guessed it - IBM.

We'll be dealing with this soon enough, won't we?

Re:Some perspective.

[dgatwood]

There's a fine line here. Being a nation of immigrants is one thing. Bringing in tens of thousands of people from overseas to do work at lower pay than U.S. employees so that U.S. companies can make higher profit margins is another. I'd be amazed if there were truly a single H1B job that couldn't be filled by a U.S. citizen. Companies just don't want to pay what it costs to fill them that way, as it usually involves relocation expenses and stealing someone away from a different type of job that pays more.

I'm strongly of the opinion that H1B visas need to be given careful scrutiny, and that for every H1B issued, the company should have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the position can't be filled by someone local. A good start might be advertising the position for two years and not getting a single applicant who meets the base qualifications. If a company hasn't done that, it's a safe bet that the company is abusing H1Bs.

As for whether H1B visas are trade, the answer is pretty clearly "no". There's a nearly perfect trade imbalance. We're employing tens of thousands of people from countries that employ pretty close to zero people from the U.S.. This is not a very efficient way of doing things. If Americans can't do the job, we need to fix our education system so that it spits out people who are qualified, not Band-Aid® the problem by bringing in foreign workers to do it.

And FWIW, you can't tell me that there are any IT jobs that Americans can't do. I might be convinced about some esoteric systems programming job (in which you want to hire the person who wrote a particular chunk of code originally), but IT jobs? No way. The employers just don't want to pay the rates needed to hire and retain Americans who would otherwise lean towards higher-paying programming jobs. That's not sufficient grounds to grant them an H1B. We should tell those companies to suck it up....

Again, I'm not saying Americans can replace all of the H1B workers---there are probably a few places where they can't---but right now, people seem afraid to even ask the question, which IMHO is just as shortsighted as the people who scream "throw them all out". The key word here is "balance", and companies that hire more and more H1B employees as they cut American workers by the thousands are pretty clearly on the wrong side of the balancing beam.

Re:Some perspective.

[shutdown -p now]

How many H1-B empoyees working for 24k do you actually know?

Microsoft calls for government bailout

[David Gerard]

SKID ROW, Redmond, Friday - Microsoft Corporation has enacted swingeing layoffs in mid-January after the failure of its stock buyback program, and has called for a government bailout in the face of the credit crunch.

"Vastly popular operating systems like Vista just aren't selling," said marketing marketer emeritus Bill Gates, "and it's all because people aren't confident to spend their money. In fact, they didn't start buying it in 2007 because they were expecting this even then. A subsidy to buy good, honest American computer operating systems is essential to the health of the economy, or my part of it."

Should the Big One of American virtual office supplies fail, economists predict that it could free up millions of dollars in business spending and provide a devastating boost to an economy reeling from the impact of the credit crunch.

Hiring in most Microsoft divisions has frozen in the last six months and 30GB Zunes are already on suicide watch. "The workload's impossible to keep up with," said blog technical evangelist Gary M. Stewart. "I've even been answering Slashdot comments on Boycott Novell or Groklaw. It's impossible to keep track of! Anyway, you're just another Twitter sockpuppet. Or Mini-Microsoft. Admit it."

Additional bailouts have been hooked on the bill as riders for HD-DVD, eight-track cartridges, 78rpm gramophones and Babbage analytical engine gear manufacturers.

Senators have stated they will only bail the company out with a change in top management. "What the shit," said Linus Torvalds as his draft notice arrived.

Re:Microsoft calls for government bailout

[elashish14]

Rules for bailout:

1. Crappy product
2. Unnecessary industry
3. Heartless executives

I can dig it.

When will it end?

[jollyreaper]

Economists like to pretend that they're dealing with a hard science but they are wrong, so very wrong. Economics is certainly a complex field of study but it is also one of the squishiest sciences there is. Economics is psychology with graphs and math. You can talk about supply and demand, this curve and that, but we're ultimately talking about human psychology. You can't use normal logic to figure this stuff out, you have to work with crowd dynamics, herd instinct, quit talking about how people should behave and pay attention to how they really behave.

If you want to understand how everything is going pear-shaped, just look at the Great White club fire. Huge crowd, small venue, and the band's pyrotechnics set the place on fire. Rationally speaking, there's no reason why anyone had to die. There were sufficient doors and sufficient time for a calm and orderly evacuation. And our economists are the ones who would look at that situation and not quite grasp why there was a panic, a human log-jam at the door, and a whole lot of dead bodies. "That wasn't rational behavior! That was irrational exuberance, or maybe irrational shit-the-bed terror. The problem here is that my observations of this event do not fit my models."

That's what we're seeing in this economy, a fire in a club. Everyone is working to maximize their own survival even though it will harm the chances for the group as a whole. Companies are shedding jobs everywhere, getting work is damned near impossible, and we've got a negative feedback loop that nobody seems to be able to break. And nobody wants to take a look at the wall where the writing stands hundreds of feet high -- "we need to reform the way we're doing business and this will change our entire economy as we've come to know it." The thought is too frightening.

Re:When will it end?

[Bearhouse]

That's why the role of Govt. is so pivotal - not just in this instance, but also in cases where 'individualistic' impulses will not work for the common good - infrastructure development, for example.

Re:When will it end?

[Skreems]

Getting work is nowhere near impossible if you're really good at what you do. I quit MSFT about 4 months back (they just pissed me off too much to continue there) and went to work for Amazon. Now MSFT is in layoffs, and we still can't find enough qualified people to fill our open headcount. Not coincidentally, the working environment is much more relaxed and friendly, pays significantly better, and we actually keep out the cruft that MSFT gladly hired when they started lowering their standards 5 years ago.

Re:When will it end?

[SatanicPuppy]

It's not for private enterprise to try and throw itself on the economic grenade. They're SUPPOSED to save themselves, their stockholders can SUE them if they don't try to save themselves, and having the whole crash next year when you could have cut sensibly beforehand is ridiculous.

The whole point of the capitalistic system is that the individual knows what is best for themselves. They need to act to preserve themselves, just as (in better times) they need to act to increase their gains.

Now obviously, this isn't good for the whole in times of crisis. That is where the government can step in, to pump money into the economy through targeted public works and infrastructure projects. Which is what it's been sorta doing...

This bank bailout crap has been a fiasco in terms of loosening up money, which also needs to happen. The other prong of recovery is often new private enterprise, which is fueled by large numbers of skilled workers who are no longer employed, but that usually requires some start-up capital, and that's problematic right now.

Anyway, socialist chicken little freak outs don't really help either. It's not the duty of the company to provide jobs, it's to maintain themselves. In the long run, that preserves more jobs.

Re:When will it end?

[jcr]

Oh, for crying out loud.

First of all, the bulk of the freshly-inflated money that those geniuses on capitol hill are giving away is going towards keeping unprofitable ventures in business, not towards building roads. Secondly, every dollar that the government taxes, borrows or inflates is a dollar that's taken from private parties and spent on things that those people have not chosen to spend it on. Government can not "stimulate" an economy by increasing government spending, as Hoover and Roosevelt thoroughly proved during the first great depression.

-jcr

Re:When will it end?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon is just ridiculously picky. I interviewed there a few weeks ago and asked what percentage they hired of those they flew out: the answer was about 5%. They said I was "good, but not good enough". I answered all the interview questions competently, and kept hearing stuff like "we normally don't get to this part, because the interviewee starts out with an O(n^2) solution rather than an O(n logn) solution..." Well anyway, you may think of it as sour grapes and maybe it is, but I was definitely qualified. Give me any programming problem you think I wouldn't be qualified to solve, and I'll prove you wrong.

Re:When will it end?

[bigsexyjoe]

Well psychology is a real experimental science. Economics isn't. That is why economics is strongly affected by politics. Do you ever hear of liberal and conservative chemists? Or even psychologists? Furthermore, economics doesn't want to acknowledge the findings of psychology, so it is just plain wrong on many things. Economics is a social science like sociology. It is a discipline that attempts to be reasonable, but is ultimately not guided by the discipline of experimental results or even the need to only propose testable ideas. There is a lot of sophisticated math in economics, but without experiments that is just a rich toolbox to make up any story you want about anything.

Re:When will it end?

[ogma]

Well then it's a pity that the majority of the economists that appear on mass-media to enlighten us with their opinions are of the bullshit armchair types.

Advanced enconomics may win Nobel Prizes, but it seems that those running the actual show prefer the bullshitters when making their decisions.

Re:When will it end?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they just thought you were an asshole.

Re:When will it end?

[Lord Ender]

Is it damn near impossible to get a job? Are the job listings on Monster, etc. really empty? My experience suggests not. Unemployment is higher than it has been in a long time, but it is still less than what is normal for Europe.

It's just another recession, man. Don't buy the media panic. Fear is their business model.

Re:When will it end?

[Gavagai80]

Government can, however, get useful productivity out of people who would otherwise be unemployed. Better to have people working for government funded projects than to pay them the money as welfare checks instead.

Re:When will it end?

[PoiBoy]

I suggest you study advanced economics more critically. Having a PhD in economics from a top-tier program, yes I agree that armchair economists are much different from real academic economists. However, I also think there is a tendency for many economists to place too much reliance on ornate mathematical and statistical models and not enough time spent stepping away from the computer, looking out the window, and asking whether or not those models are realistic. Note that looking out the window and seeing what people are actually doing is NOT the same thing as running 10,000 regressions to try and prove your model is correct. Common sense has no substitute.

Re:When will it end?

[mysticgoat]

Bullshit. The money that governments are currently spending on bail-outs and stimulus programs is not coming from any private parties. It is coming from the future.

It is coming from the future in the form of debt. It is based on the faith that eventually there will be enough wealth to cover the tremendous costs of yesterday's bad decisions and today's corrective actions. These debts are high risk since there is no collateral to back them. However, if these become bad debts, that means we're screwed anyway. We'll be back in the day when it is more valuable to know how to clean a pig sty than to know Python or even the Pythagorean theorem.

It isn't like we've got much choice in the matter. Marketplace decisions for the last few years have left us with trillions more dollars on paper than there is real wealth to back, and with all the risk management schemes, there is no way to attach the shortfall to any one region or segment. It's now a general system failure. We're screwed if we don't act, and we might be screwed no matter what we do.

It would be nice to see those who were responsible for watching the marketplace who should have raised the alarm about this five years ago hung screaming by their cojones in a Texas desert. That wouldn't help us out of the bind the world is now in, but I and others would feel a bit better if that were to happen. Which should count for a little something.

Re:When will it end?

[mabhatter654]

we need Pyramids!! Look at Egypt... the governments that built pyramids are still getting tourist traffic 5000 years later! That's an investment.

Perfectly normal

[carvalhao]

This is a normal management decision. When you have prospects of declining growth, cutting 5 to 10% of your under-performers is just good management.

Rationality aside, my sympathies for the families of those being laid off (although in the USA job market this is not such a big deal).

Re:Perfectly normal

[Hodar]

Jack Welch, when he took over GE started the whole 10% of your under-achiever hog-wash.

Now, if you have poor achievers in your company, who have been there for decades - as GE had - perhaps a 1 time 'cleansing' is necessary. But, if you are doing your interviewing competently, and are teaching and mentoring your new hires - to continuously 'fire' 10% of the workforce is not only stupid, it's counter productive.

Consider, how long does it take a person to learn his job function and all the nuances that take it from being merely fulfilled, but where he can then magnify it? Given the proper motivation, a below average performer can become a top-performer. If a person knows what's expected, is shown how to do this, and is encouraged - he will either refuse to conform (termination case) or he will improve. I've seen this, I've done this and it works.

Other employees see this, and morale improves. People do not want to leave that group/company. Motorola USED to be like this. When Samsung came into town, they had to offer 20%+ salary bumps to attract Motorola employees to leave. Why? Because the people at Motorola knew that they were 'safe', that they had a career and a future with the company. Then Hector Ruiz came along and killed Motorola, before moving on to AMD and killing them.

I do not subscribe to the 10% cull; because you very quickly come to the point that you are cutting good people, and replacing them with good people who you will fire in a year or so. This creates a hostile work environment (why should I welcome you, help you or agree to work with you - if I'm competing against you to keep my job?), slows projects down (people shift departments constantly, at the slightest rumor of a reduction in headcount in a particular division), and you spend a great deal of your time where 90% of your employees are waiting for 10% of the team to come up to speed with their job requirements.

Show me a company that embraces the 10% cull, and I'll show you a company that is on the way down the tubes. Companies that terminate the poor performers, not due to some obscure quota, but do to performance - tend to retain their employees for the long haul. IBM used to be famous for this, and they rose to world domination. Motorola used to embrace this, and they used to have a world-class semiconductor market, communications division, automotive parts, space, micro-controllers and cell phone groups. The people make a company great - not the managment. Management has never made a company great, but poor managment has certainly killed more than a few.

Re:Perfectly normal

[tgd]

And, to be even more clear, damn near every company can lose 5-10% of its workforce without impact.

Layoffs are the perfect opportunity to get rid of the people who you don't really want there but don't want to go through the hassle of actually firing.

Anyone who has gone through the process of making the list knows that its not random, not last hired-first-fired... when its individuals in a group and not the whole group, its "who have we wanted to get rid of and actually can now without giving them multiple warnings and dragging it out for months?".

Re:Perfectly normal

[CAIMLAS]

What do you mean, this isn't a big deal in the USA job market? Are you saying it's not a big deal to be laid off in the US, or that it's not a big deal because Americans don't have families? Or something else?

As an IT worker who has been laid off twice in the last year due to downturns who has a family, let me tell you, it is a fucking big deal. HR types still very much have the mentality of "oh you were laid off? There must be something wrong with you" and won't even consider someone who's got multiple short stints of employment in a row.

Re:Perfectly normal

[CrazyTalk]

One other advantage of the 10% cut pioneered by GE - fear. Fear will keep the local employees in line. Fear of this battle station.

Re:Perfectly normal

[gosand]

I don't believe that it is the under-performers being cut. Maybe they are cutting areas that are losing money, or aren't making as much as other areas. That could be due to lots of factors, not just performance.

That "get rid of the bottom 10%" BS has to stop. I know someone who manages engineers @ Intel. When they went through cuts a year or so ago, he had just started managing his team. It was raise time, and he was told he couldn't give raises to his bottom performers. He had hand-built his team, and he argued that he didn't have any bottom performers. He fought for his team, and he won - he was able to give them all raises.

Now if he has to make cuts, he'll make cuts. And he'll have to do it strategically based on lots of things. If a company just uses a blanket statement that they are cutting 10% of the staff as under-performers, they are either full of shit or are managed piss-poorly. You don't just cut across the bottom in your entire company. That's why there's re-orgs, and shifting of people, etc. You do want to keep your best people, but you also have to understand when to change the structure of things.

And I can tell you from talking to my friend, and because I interviewed at Intel in the past, they analyze EVERYTHING and are very data driven. It sucks that people are getting laid off, because there really isn't anyone out there hiring. It is the harsh reality of this economy. Hey I know, let's spend a few trillion more dollars by invading another sovereign nation for no good reason, that'll fix things.

Steve Ballmer's memo to employees

[smooth wombat]

Here is a link to the entire memo Steve sent to employees regarding the layoffs.

No, it's not my blog nor am I affiliated in any way with the site.

Re:Steve Ballmer's memo to employees

[Kaneda2112]

While it is unpleasant, at least Ballmer acknowledges it's happenning. At IBM (and as an IBMer), no-one has any official information. It seems like employees are being liquidated by a death squad and made into Orwellian 'unpersons' as their names disappear from 'Blupages' - the company directory.

I would rather get an offical word from the management folks ahead of time. I can only suspect IBM management is afraid of sabotage or people getting upset in public - from those that are to be shown the door. I can't think of any other reason for keeping us in the dark.

To quote Grand Moff Tarkin (sp?) - "Fear will keep the local systems in line..."

Re:Is it cos I iz black?

[jcr]

FDR blamed Hoover for about a decade.

-jcr

When did things change?

[Hodar]

Once upon a time, a company had loyalty to it's people, and the worker's were expected to have some loyalty to the company. If the company had a rough quarter or a poor year, people pulled together and worked harder. A company USED to do layoffs to avoid going bankrupt. Workers viewed each other as extended family members - it was common for workers to get together at each other's homes on weekends and holidays. Families got to know each other, work was done in a 'team' enviroment; and if you pulled your weight and did your job - you could expect to retire with the company you worked for. 20 years of service was celebrated, opportunties for promotion were biased such that someone who had shown loyalty to the company had first dibs, over someone coming in from the outside.

Today, despite record profits, companies close plants and terminate people - so the few executives can reap huge bonus's. Getting laid off by a plant closing, business downturn, or poor managment decisions punishes employees who were powerless to avoid the mistake - but end up taking full responsibility in that they have to sell their homes, and re-locate to find work elsewhere. With the cost of housing - this means that the 401K money must be robbed today, so they can continue to make mortgage payments while they try to sell their home, and have money to bring to closing when their home sells for less than what they paid for it.

I've been there, I've had my retirment almost depleted because companies transferred jobs to India, a plant closing, terminating a project I was involved with, a company purchased and moved overseas, and a company that failed due to poor managment. Now after 20 years, I finally have solid career.

When did all this change? Why did this change? It certainly hasn't been for the better - for the USA used to lead the world in production, in technology and development. People used to matter, now each of us is just a cog in the company machine. We are all expendable, and will be dropped on a whim. I wonder why.

Re:When did things change?

[Punko]

It changed when your company went public. As soon as the first duty of the company changed from working owners to non-employee shareholders, employees are simply meaningless. As a shareholder of our own privately held firm, our employees are our number one asset. Layoffs, when necessary due to lower service demands, are keenly felt. If our firm was to go public, we would morph into the same heartless money machines as all other publicly traded firms. You want employees to matter? Don't go public.

Re:When did things change?

[Hodar]

I've done the Dollar Dance before. You end up losing, and losing big.

Work for company 'x' for 10 years. Get rewards, bonus's and patents. Leverage to get a 50% raise at company 'y'. But wait, company 'y' expects you to single-handedly pull them out of years worth of poor investments and bad managment decisions. A year later the plant closes. Now you and 5,000 of your fellow workers (all skilled) are competing for limited job opportunties in the area. This translates to a glut of houses on the market at the same time, as you have to move to find work. Sell your home for a loss (what color Lexus do you want me to buy you?)and move somewhere else to try to recover. But wait, this company is underfunded and goes down too. Hmmm, I've almost doubled my income in 3 years, moved 2x and am out several tens of thousands of dollars because I had to pay to buy and sell multiple homes - each one at a loss.

Do this for 10 years, and watch your retirement approach depletion. When you find a stable job, that pays a fair salary - you will give very SERIOUS thought before you consider jumping ship for a job that may pay more in the short term, but may mean you are on the job market involuntarily in a year or two. "Slow and steady wins the race" is a very wise saying. I was unwise in that I chose to ignore it.

Re:When did things change?

[DaMattster]

I wonder if things really used to be much better. I would be more apt to say that the pace of change was slower so it seemed as if people held on to their jobs for the long haul and indeed some did. The information age has made it possible to make financial decisions at a pace previously unheard of. This is probably why layoffs are happening well before a company gets to bankruptcy. Still, when you here Microsoft going from profits above 4 billion to slightly below and they cut 5,000 jobs .... it has to make you a little angry. Obviously, Microsoft paid little heed to President Obama's plea for the country to be less self-centered and to realize that economic recovery will take people working together. It is more of a "We" approach vs. "I"

Try to take a long view. This crisis is ultimately a "good" thing for our country. It will shake our country to its foundation and force us to come to grips that regulated capitalism is not such a bad thing. Even Richard Nixon understood that regulations placed on the banking and financial sectors were necessary. The deregulation from Nixon thru Clinton and finally Bush helped lead to this meltdown. We are on the cusp of greatness yet again. This is a chance for us to come together to be even better.

Re:When did things change?

[hansamurai]

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel

If this crisis has done anything for me, it's shown me that regulation is the main problem. If you think we had unregulated capitalism before, you are completely wrong. Banks were highly regulated, the entire financial sector was highly regulated. Government involvement is only making it worse.

Re:When did things change?

[D Ninja]

I've done the Dollar Dance before. You end up losing, and losing big.

A Slashdotter who is a stripper. Ugh...I'm feeling a little queasy...

Re:When did things change?

[Skuld-Chan]

When did IBM go public? I have pictures and remember stories from my grandfather and mother (who was a customer service engineer - went onsite to fix mainframes - based out of the Salem Oregon IBM Computing center) in the 50's, 60's and 70's where they hosted huge camping trips and vacations at various resorts for all their employees.

Re:A helping hand

[King_TJ]

Except I don't think it's really quite that simple.

Possibly, much of that "cheap, overseas labor" companies are taking advantage of are helping them stay profitable, despite the economic decline?

If they ditched that now, and tried to use US labor to replace it? They'd have to offer people nothing more than bare minimum wage and NO benefits of any kind, and still likely be paying out more than they do now.

Despite the rampant unemployment, I don't think America needs more low-paying, dead-end jobs. Those are grabbed up by the desperate, who think "Anything is better than nothing!" But in the long-run, that's not doing anybody any favors. At those low pay-rates, they're still the ones in line for every type of government assistance - because they can't pay their medical bills or pay for their kids to eat lunch at school, or .....

Re:Is it cos I iz black?

[SatanicPuppy]

To be fair, it was Hoover's fault. Not that he could know; most of the techniques we use today to try and mitigate the effects of a long term downturn weren't even invented during Hoover's administration. It wasn't (at that time) recognized that unregulated capitalism was perfectly capable of committing suicide.

Not H1-B: Try Offshore Contracting

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the answer for IBM is "offshore contracting". Waaaay cheaper. Spoken from experience. More and more of my coworkers are in another timezone. They're in India, the Philippines, South America, et. Al. We've been training up these contractors are some of the systems. Hopefully, lucky for me, the Big Systems with Major Impact are not being segued over.

I'm posting as AC for obvious reasons, I think.

Re:Not H1-B: Try Offshore Contracting

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course what you left out is the many problems with off-shoring. I'm in Global Services and several accounts have threatened legal action due to quality and SLA drops. I've yet to meet an Indian or Argentina who understands that a 3 day SLA means they have to get the work done in that time. You can tell them but for them it is no big deal that it is a day or a week late. Then quality is amazingly poor.

Re:Not H1-B: Try Offshore Contracting

[fmoliveira]

Don't blame entire countries because of the people your out-sourcers end contracting. I'm in one of these countries, and I know how fast and bad executed are the recruiting for american companies. They don't expend more than between a day and a week searching. These HR firms are gold-diggers that know you guys have loads of money, and that you don't expect much, so they pick the first worker they think they can bullshit you in, and ask for a lot more than they pay for him.

Only one safe place in a time like this ...

[oldspewey]

I know somebody who works at IBM. They work on a project that supports HR department's requirements when they are doing big layoffs.

In a kafkaesque sort of way, they have job security just so long as things suck and there are additional layoffs coming down the pipeline.

Re:Is it cos I iz black?

[j0nb0y]

Really, it was the Federal Reserve's fault. Trying to fight inflation in a recession is stupid. But that was long before Milton Friedman's monetarism.

Of course, Hoover's protectionist policies didn't help. Hopefully Obama listens to his well chosen economic advisers and doesn't follow the same path.

Re:Is it cos I iz black?

[jcr]

To be fair, it was Hoover's fault.

Hoover screwed up, but Roosevelt continued and compounded Hoover's mistakes. It's quite interesting to dig up Roosevelt's speeches from the campaign against Hoover, where he correctly lambasted Hoover for all the things that he later referred to as the "new deal" and promoted.

-jcr

Job OPENINGS

[CrazyTalk]

Go to the Microsoft Careers home page and search for job openings - there are six new openings for TODAY alone - 853 openings altogether. Wonder how many of those will eventually be closed?

Re:Job OPENINGS

[doug]

Some companies keep fake openings circulating just to stir up the waters. The question then becomes: are those openings real or phantom? I have no idea if MS does phantom openings or not, I'm just saying that it does happen.

- doug

Just ignore it?

[AlpineR]

Previous economic discussions on Slashdot have included several posts with the sentiment: "I'm choosing to ignore this recession. I still have a job so I'm going to continue as before. The only economic problem we have is psychological."

Are you still so certain that your job will remain when another 5% of your customers are about to become unemployed? Are you still so optimistic that you could easily find a new job with a million other educated and experienced workers back on the job hunt too?

Even if this recession were purely psychological, it has set a wave in motion that will splash around for a while causing layoffs and bankruptcies. If there is a rational basis for the economic shrinkage then it could be even worse. I wonder how long it will take to return to growth and optimism.

Re:Is it cos I iz black?

[Yvan256]

That's because Hoover sucks

Ping pong, air hockey tables, and barber chairs

[gatkinso]

Remember what that was deemed appropriate must have office equipment for the hip IT company?

Why don't they sell some of that crap?

If Ballmer and Gates chipped in half a billion each, that would pay 1000 employees a hundred grand for a year.

Re:Ping pong, air hockey tables, and barber chairs

[east coast]

Why pay these employees if they can function in getting their products to market without them? Why is it that a company has to be in the red before people understand why lay offs should happen?

Most indicators at this point show that the PC market is in a decline much like most other markets during this current economic crisis. Paying the same number of employees to put out less product is a terrible business move.

Re:The Vista Factor

[east coast]

It's also short sighted to bash them for this move.

Let's be honest about the situation here. With one major electronics retailer going down and layoffs in droves from other industries it's pretty clear to see that MS is taking a wise point of view to realize that PC sales are going to be somewhere between stagnant and declining.

Windows sales are largely driven by PC sales. If PC sales are in a slump it's going to directly relate to Microsoft sales. This shouldn't be a hard concept. Otherwise you'd need to provide me with numbers that show that PC sales are either increasing or steady. If you could do that you would be able to show that there is a market swing from Windows based systems of 8% in the last year. Those kinds of numbers simply don't exist anyplace.

IBM just announced creating 1300 jobs...

[The Bastard]

International Business Machines Corp. said Thursday it plans to open a technology service delivery center in Dubuque, Iowa, creating 1,300 jobs in the northeast part of the state.

http://www.startribune.com/science/37635999.html?elr=KArks:DCiUo3PD:3D_V_qD3L:c7cQKUiacyKUnciaec8O7EyUr

Cheaper digs and salaries (average salary ~ $45K), and Iowa and locals are giving around $50-80 million in cash and prizes to get them.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090115/BUSINESS/90115020/-1/BUSINESS04

And yet all are hiring

[WindBourne]

All 3 are hiring out of the states and EU. It is called this is a mass move of jobs out of the states.

Sun also had layoffs today

[Anonymous Coward]

15% layoff - or in that figure. We've known about it for months, coming, too. Today is the "notification day" for many Sun employees, too ;(

Which means no hiring

[dlsmith]

And here I am looking for a job at IBM, Intel, Sun, . . . . Maybe I should take the in-laws up on their offer to let their son-in-law with a CS PhD live in the basement for a few years.

Re:Which means no hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

..and start a business.

Microsoft Layoffs: whoo hoo

Gov Pay Not Perpetual Motion

[swb]

Uhh, if the government pays a salary of $100,000 and then collects $30,000 in taxes, you can't say that not paying the salary is a loss of $30,000 in taxes. It's a gain of $70,000 via not paying the salary to begin with.

You're not creating wealth by taking the $100,000 from other people as taxes and then giving it to the worker. Claiming his spending represents a positive economic activity is kind of silly, since the money was already taken from other people.

Repeat after me: government does not create wealth. Even if it makes some men wealthy.

Government can only create wealth if it gets into the business of making & selling something, which is generally a bad idea for all kinds of reasons, e.g., socialism doesn't work.

Re:Gov Pay Not Perpetual Motion

[Anonymous Coward]

You are ignoring counter-examples like the Erie Canal, NASA spin-offs, the federal highway system, etc. There are certainly many examples where the government created wealth by acting in areas the market was uninterested in or incapable of exploiting.

Re:Gov Pay Not Perpetual Motion

[tthomas48]

"E.g. socialism doesn't work". You kind of just blasted your whole post at the end there. Just because you don't like socialism doesn't mean it doesn't work. There are plenty of socialist countries that work just fine, regardless of whether you want to live there. I'd prefer not to work under a military dictatorship, but I'm not about to suggest it doesn't work as a system of government.

Re:Gov Pay Not Perpetual Motion

[DragonWriter]

Uhh, if the government pays a salary of $100,000 and then collects $30,000 in taxes, you can't say that not paying the salary is a loss of $30,000 in taxes.

Yes, you can. Because it is.

It's also a cost savings of $100,000 dollars.

It's also a loss of the productive work the person was being hired to do.

Unless you do additional policy changes, its also quite likely an additional cost imposed on services with income or unemployment-based qualification rules. If you do change policy to present that, you are instead imposing the social cost that those policies were designed to address.

You're not creating wealth by taking the $100,000 from other people as taxes and then giving it to the worker.

If the worker is doing work with a net public benefit, which certainly all public work is intended to be, you are, in fact, creating wealth, in the broadest sense, by doing that.

Sure, if you discount the value of the work done, then paying the worker is net loss, but that's true everywhere, not just in government.

Claiming his spending represents a positive economic activity is kind of silly, since the money was already taken from other people.

All money that pays for any work comes from other people.

Repeat after me: government does not create wealth. Even if it makes some men wealthy.

Repeating this quasi-religious mantra won't magically make it true.

Government can only create wealth if it gets into the business of making & selling something

Government is in the business of making/providing, and exchanging for payment, goods and services. In fact, that's all government does.

which is generally a bad idea for all kinds of reasons, e.g., socialism doesn't work.

Insofar as the phrase "socialism doesn't work" is true, its not relevant, insofar as its relevant, its not true.

Re:Gov Pay Not Perpetual Motion

[rabtech]

While that may be true, you must also understand that in a consumer-driven economy you must have *large* numbers of consumers with disposable income to drive the economy. Any long-term concentration of wealth can act like a money sink, preventing the "trickle-down" from taking effect.

In other words there are only so many yachts and mansions Bill Gates can possibly own and at some point more money is just the billionaire equivalent of any other form of pensu waving. If the government takes more of his money and gives it to consumers to spend, they will spend it on consumer goods, thus increasing sales, and stimulating the economy. But like any strategy, the negatives can overtake the positives if you go too far... take too much money and the rich man can't make investments that provide capital for business to function. But even then too much investment in infrastructure and capital projects without enough consumers creating demand for those products and you are back in trouble.

I think the case can certainly be made that we have moved too far into the concentration of wealth category and a little government taking and spending can help rebalance the economy. Then when that goes too far, the next Regan can come in and cut taxes, starting the cycle over again.

Re:A helping hand

[click2005]

selling them for $5. Materials cost me $1 and labor costs me $4 per widget, so I make about a dollar profit.

No, you're going out of business because you cant count. :)

psst..

[coryking]

Reganomics is dead, pass it on.

If you think there is exactly one problem that caused this whole mess, you are wrong. Like any good engineering failure, this was caused by multiple little failures all concatenated to create a nice big one.

Re:Is it cos I iz black?

[Prof.Phreak]

...unregulated capitalism was perfectly capable of committing suicide.

Care to cite an example? Pretty much every single economic collapse of the past was -caused- by a centralized control or manipulation of some sort; not free market capitalism.

Go figure..

[eReMJot]

Well I can't say that I didn't see this coming since during an interview at IBM in Poland I was told by the head of a department that they will be recruiting at least a 100 new employees this year just in the Krakow office.

Already the currency makes a difference and adding the fact that IBM is known to be very cheap in pay here makes a great savings plan..

who gets layed off

[junkgoof]

Well it's not going to be the boss's lunch buddies. Probably one of those annoying asocial guys who claims to do work.

They're just playing with themselves

[ClosedSource]

For some companies the hiring process is a form of masturbation. Rejecting a high percentage of people makes them feel like they select only the best, which implies that they are the best too.

When I was hiring we spent only about an hour with each candidate and hired people who worked out fine.

H1-b's old news; offshore the new hip thing

[monkeyboythom]

I know for a fact that several departments within IBM (in the US) have sent down employees to Brazil and India to train those who wouldd eventually take over their jobs.

So in the strictest sense, yes, it is a resource action to fire "duplicate" services or make the company run leaner. However, it is disengenious to say anything other than this was planned to occur as early as Q1 2008. Simply put, IBM artifically inflated their employee base so that they could transition services to a less costly (to the bean counters) and fire the ones in the US.

They will "get away with it" only so long as the company sees no penalty in their actions. They didn't fire anyone until after Christmas and after their quarterly earnings. So to many investors they are doing good things.

The only way to combat offshoring is: a) as a US customer, demand goods and services that originate in the US; b) US gov't remove any tax benefits to a company that has X percentage of the workforce in other countries. It doesn't penalize a company (ala tarrifs) but does reward companies that are American in employee base with tax incentives.

Re:H1-b's old news; offshore the new hip thing

[bnenning]

The only way to combat offshoring is: a) as a US customer, demand goods and services that originate in the US; b) US gov't remove any tax benefits to a company that has X percentage of the workforce in other countries

Or c) Produce more value than offshore workers. This isn't that hard to do, not because foreign labor is inherently worse, but because of the substantial inefficiencies caused by trying to run offshore teams.

Re:Is it cos I iz black?

[Z34107]

Capitalism is by definition ruled by a boom/bust cycle

Capitalism. Noun. An economic system ruled by boom and bust cycles.

Well, not exactly. Not even Wiktionary has that definition. Most people argue that the boom/bust cycle is a result of centralized monetary policy. I'd dig out some articles if I were at home and not on my lunch break.

the bust is bad enough, it can take decades to recover, which is indeed what happened in the great depression.

Depression wasn't just "cyclical downturn crits you for 10." There was another credit crunch during the roaring '20s - people bought everything on credit. Why save up for a radio when you could rent it now for so many dollars a month? Why buy stock outright when you can put 10% down and your broker will give you the rest?

People spent the entirety of their paychecks on what amounts to debt maintenance. A little bump in the great, winding road of economics and suddenly you're wondering if the other 90% will ever appear. Eerily similar to the subprime mortgages today.

Re:Is it cos I iz black?

[genner]

Ding, Dong, the Bush is gone; Which old Bush? The stupid one.

You'll have to be more specific.

Ballmer's e-mail to employees regarding layoffs

[WebmasterNeal]

From: Steve Ballmer Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 6:07 AM Subject: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

In response to the realities of a deteriorating economy, we're taking important steps to realign Microsoft's business. I want to tell you about what we're doing and why.

Today we announced second quarter revenue of $16.6 billion. This number is an increase of just 2 percent compared with the second quarter of last year and it is approximately $900 million below our earlier expectations.

The fact that we are growing at all during the worst recession in two generations reflects our strong business fundamentals and is a testament to your hard work. Our products provide great value to our customers. Our financial position is solid. We have made long-term investments that continue to pay off.

But it is also clear that we are not immune to the effects of the economy. Consumers and businesses have reined in spending, which is affecting PC shipments and IT expenditures.

Our response to this environment must combine a commitment to long-term investments in innovation with prompt action to reduce our costs.

During the second quarter we started down the right path. As the economy deteriorated, we acted quickly. As a result, we reduced operating expenses during the quarter by $600 million. I appreciate the agility you have shown in enabling us to achieve this result.

Now we need to do more. We must make adjustments to ensure that our investments are tightly aligned with current and future revenue opportunities. The current environment requires that we continue to increase our efficiency.

As part of the process of adjustments, we will eliminate up to 5,000 positions in R&D, marketing, sales, finance, LCA, HR, and IT over the next 18 months, of which 1,400 will occur today. We'll also open new positions to support key investment areas during this same period of time. Our net headcount in these functions will decline by 2,000 to 3,000 over the next 18 months. In addition, our workforce in support, consulting, operations, billing, manufacturing, and data center operations will continue to change in direct response to customer needs.

Our leaders all have specific goals to manage costs prudently and thoughtfully. They have the flexibility to adjust the size of their teams so they are appropriately matched to revenue potential, to add headcount where they need to increase investments in order to ensure future success, and to drive efficiency.

To increase efficiency, we're taking a series of aggressive steps. We'll cut travel expenditures 20 percent and make significant reductions in spending on vendors and contingent staff. We've scaled back Puget Sound campus expansion and reduced marketing budgets. We'll also reduce costs by eliminating merit increases for FY10 that would have taken effect in September of this calendar year.

Each of these steps will be difficult. Our priority remains doing right by our customers and our employees. For employees who are directly affected, I know this will be a difficult time for you and I want to assure you that we will provide help and support during this transition. We have established an outplacement center in the Puget Sound region and we'll provide outplacement services in many other locations to help you find new jobs. Some of you may find jobs internally. For those who don't, we will also offer severance pay and other benefits.

The decision to eliminate jobs is a very difficult one. Our people are the foundation of everything we have achieved and we place the highest value on the commitment and hard work that you have dedicated to building this company. But we believe these job eliminations are crucial to our ability to adjust the company's cost structure so that we have the resources to drive future profitable growth. I encourage you to attend tomorrow's Town Hall at 9am PST in Cafe 34 or watch the Webcast.

While this is the most challenging economic climate

Spending helped; taxation didn't

[weston]

Wishing doesn't make it so.

Near as I can tell, only difference between his assertion and yours was a pretty bare argument amounting to the idea that new private investment is good while new government investment does nothing but take away from that.

There are two big problems with that argument. The first and most obvious being that new private investment is highly limited right now by broken capital markets, and the conventional Friedmanesque tools the Monetarists and some neoclassicists have embraced aren't doing a darn thing, which is why people are even talking about Keynesian stimulus again.

The second problem is the idea that private investment is inherently better than public investment. I'd agree that for many cases market forces tend to correct bad investments more quickly than public policy mechanism. But there's nothing magical about private investment that dictates a person making the capital allocation decisions will automatically make wise growth-yielding choices while a person of similar abilities and education in a public role will make poor ones -- Scott Adams has made a career out of making this very point, sometimes with an economy of hyperbole that's startling.

So the real and big question here isn't public vs private, it's whether or not people making decisions about investments are making good ones that return the genuine value that underlies real economic growth. In short, if a government spends money it took from a valuable private enterprise badly, then yes, there's a net loss. If a government spends money it took from a private system that's barely investing in genuinely valuable enterprises at all on investments of even middling value, then it's a pretty different story.

If all of FDR's spending, regulating, and taxing brought us out of the depression,

The position of a lot of modern Keynesians (including Krugman, who's looking more and more right over a lot of stuff he took crap for 5-10 years ago) is more or less that the spending did indeed help. Some of the regulation and taxation (particularly certain 36/37 tax hikes) not so much.

then why did it last so much longer than any previous depression, when the government didn't have the power for that kind of intervention?

There are certainly a number of suggestible targets: a bigger and less localized collapse, climatic problems on top of economic problems, and some of the tax and trade policy decisions. Spending, not so much.

And which depressions are you arguing were markedly shorter? The "Long Depression" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression ) has been measured from 6 to 24 years. The Panic of 1837 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1837 ) is measured at about 5 years. You can credibly argue that inside of 5 years, growth as measured via GDP was on the rise at a rate comparable to pre-crash rates, and inside 8, GDP surpassed peak 1929 levels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gdp20-40.jpg ). Heck, if the top tax rate hadn't been raised to 80%, they might have even avoided that dip there in late 30s.

Re:Flakes off Bill Gates Ass

[SpinyNorman]

Not quite as insignificant as you think.

Microsoft's June 2008 worlwide head count 91,259

was http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/inside_ms.mspx

So 5,000 being let go is still a > 5% layoff. 1-in-20 being let go.