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Layoffs At Now-Private Dell May Hit Over 15,000 Staffers
schwit1 writes "Curious why Michael Dell was so eager to take the company he founded private? So he could do stuff like this without attracting too much attention. According to the Channel Register, the recently LBOed company is 'starting the expected huge layoff program this week, claiming numbers will be north of 15,000.' Of course, with a private sponsor in charge of the recently public company, the only thing that matters now is maximizing cash flows in an environment of falling PC sales, a commoditisation of the server market and a perceived need to better serve enterprises with their ever-increasing mobile and cloud-focused IT requirements — things that do not bode well for Dell's EBITDA — and the result is perhaps the largest axing round in the company's history. But at least the shareholders cashed out while they could."
This should have been done by the previous management. Dell is running a company whose business is in serious decline where no-one really knwos where the market will be in five to ten years time. Doing anything else would be commercial suicide.
[FUCK BETA]
PC sales have been steadily declining for years. Large PC maker lays off employees. And? Same thing happened at record player companies. And typewriter companies. And factories that produced film. If you want to complain about something, the complain about how Dell couldn't turn itself into Apple or Google. Laying off people is the only way to save the company at this point in time.
Better known as 318230.
At least they get health coverage for the next 18 months.
If they can afford it. The charming thing about COBRA is that you get hit paying 100% of premiums when you can least afford it. Heaven forbid that we become a bunch of commies like those Canucks. I've heard that even the snow is red up there.
I seem to recall the markets applauding big companies that "slashed costs" by layoffs, even though the long-term results might be disastrous.
Believe it or not, once upon a time layoffs would cause a company's stock price to fall. The markets figured, usually correctly, that layoffs meant the company was in trouble. In Dell's case I'm afraid the layoffs might be necessary, as the company is in serious trouble, but when profitable companies have needless layoffs, it's ridiculous. You can almost always make the company's finances look better in the short term with layoffs.
The best analogy I've heard (and this from a serious business analyst) is that many of these companies are like the participants in a body building contest. For those that don't know, they usually take lots of diuretics and what not for a few days before the contest to increase muscle definition. It also leaves them weak as hell. You could probably knock them over with a feather. That's the way a lot of companies are these days. Superficially they look great on the balance sheet, but they're actually quite weak when it comes to anything beyond the next quarter.
That's one of the reasons I cannot feel any sort of loyalty to any company I've worked for ever and I laugh at those who do.
I'm a "soldier of fortune" (yes, I've been called that in pre-job/post-job interviews) but it's all business at the end of the day and your beloved company won't feel any regret of firing my or your ass when the gods of the spreadsheets declare their thirst for blood. Hell, even Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, which the guy founded.
Also, all that crap about corporate values: I don't give a fuck! The only way I'm staying somewhere is because I'm either better paid or because I have better conditions, if that's not the case, I'm gone. And so do you.
I was laid off a couple of years ago from an employer which had a high average age
A charming aspect of our for-profit health insurance system is that this is a concern for employers, which leads to age discrimination. Even under Obamacare you can have a 3:1 range depending on age. If we're going to have that kind of crap, why not go back to the old system where insurance would cost a fortune if you had existing health problems. How is that any more discriminatory? No other country does it this way. In Germany for example, where insurance is mostly handled by non-profit insurance companies, you can only vary premium costs depending on where you live. Like other countries, the per capita health care expenses are at least a third less than the US (as a %/GDP - the difference is greater if you use exchange rate or PPP).
Yes, I'm in my 50's. If I have to go back to COBRA or "open market", that will cream me. It's ok to screw me because of my age, but the fact that I'm in good health doesn't buy me anything. Basically I spent decades subsidizing the health care of those who were older or less healthy than me. I'd be fine with that, except now that I'm older it's a big "SCREW YOU".
Health care ended up being tied to employment because everybody worked.
You're ignorant of history. Health care ended up being tied to employment because there was a wage freeze during WWII, but a loophole let employers add benefits.
It was our grandparents who made this nation the greatest in the world.
And it was our grandparents who fought (sometimes literally) for better wages and working conditions, Social Security, and a host of other evil things. If it hadn't been for the employer based health insurance in WWII, we'd likely have gotten UHC in the late 40's. We also would have saved trillions of dollars because of it.
Universal Healthcare will be part of that after Obamacare fails
Let's hope we don't become a socialist hellhole like Canada, Australia or Japan.
Just join the Occupy Wallstreet crowd and stand in line for a government handout.
If you want a handout you'd be better off on Wall Street. The banks got handouts that are beyond the wildest dreams of anybody in the OWS crowd.
It's really stupid for insurance to be tied to employment.
Indeed. During the communist era in China, each factory ran a school for the children of their workers. If someone changed jobs, their children had to change schools. Americans laugh at how insane that was, but the way we run our healthcare system is just as stupid. It is absurd for your employer to be involved in your healthcare.
Here is a complete, exhaustive list of everything that an employer should provide to their workers in exchange for their labor:
1. Money
Everything else (healthcare, pension, etc.) should be obtained elsewhere.