What's wrong with the big companies?!

[Warrior Poet]

Prost!

 

[kenobi65]

Sounds like the issue (and most of the job cuts, based on the article Reveal linked to) has everything to do with your employer anticipating that that particular division was going to continue to decrease in importance (and profitability).

Just because the company as a whole is making great money doesn't mean every division is.

I think the other issue they face is that they're clearly spending far too much money on having Catherine Zeta-Jones as their spokeswoman here in the U.S.

 

[Dougal DeKree]

Sounds like the issue (and most of the job cuts, based on the article Reveal linked to) has everything to do with your employer anticipating that that particular division was going to continue to decrease in importance (and profitability).

Just because the company as a whole is making great money doesn't mean every division is.

I think the other issue they face is that they're clearly spending far too much money on having Catherine Zeta-Jones as their spokeswoman here in the U.S.

For one the division they are going to cut most is not the one making negative numbers, it's just the more technical one, so I guess managers simply don't understand what it's good for. Also the same division is making good gross profit.

On the other hand I didn't know they had Zeta as spokeswoman. Hell, she must get payed the profit of my whole lifes earnings in a year - if that is enough.

 

[Arnwyn]

Exactly after making this success public there goes the second announcement: Next year they want to reduce the staff by 32000 people.

IMO our managers must by CE or simply nuts. Or can anyone tell me the logic behind this?

To provide a brief summary: reducing costs = increased share price.

The market loves any announcement relating to the aggressive reduction of costs, and workforce reduction is one of the easier options. This gives (obviously) a short term result, but that's how the equity market works.

 

[nothing to see here]

Some big companies can treat people bad.

Some big companies can treat people nice.

Some small businesses can treat people bad.

Some small businesses can treat people nice.

Some people treat others bad.

Some people treat others nice.

Whether ruthless behaviour is more systemic to the corporation than to the individual is purely dependant on your politics or, perhaps, your personal experience.

 

[Dougal DeKree]

Arnwyn, sure, reducing personel reduces costs. But on the opposite: our team called for additional employees for 4 years now. We are working on a software with about 20 people (not too much, I know) and had to turn down offers of the industry because we don't have enough resources. Until now we have been denied any additional help, loosing a lot of money in the process. Now we are told that we don't earn enough money. BTW everyone is working ~50h per week. Now reducing us by half would mean just one thing: Our software dies because of lack in progress and the whole team will either quit or be sacked.

Had I known that last year, I doubt I would be father of a six month old right now...

 

[Dougal DeKree]

Whether ruthless behaviour is more systemic to the corporation than to the individual is purely dependant on your politics or, perhaps, your personal experience.

Or it can be dependant on your field of expertise. I work in a purely technical field and my experiences until now have been bad to worse. Human resources (which is a term I despise as it is!) seem to prefer technical personal as "sacking potential" before looking at other parts of the company. But maybe I only have bad experiences. Or maybe I am only drunk.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Also, telecom is a cut-throat business - at least here in the US. It's a very tough business. I work for a very large technology consulting company with close to 100,000 employees, and I'm pretty happy. Things are actually pretty good, and they seem to value the employees they have. So it's not all bad out there.

 

[Dougal DeKree]

Kid, give me an offer and I am off. Here it is all about making people afraid so that they work more hours unpayed and generally advancing the "you are close to being fired"-method. I really couldn't care less for this way of inner-company-dealings.

Sad thing is that my field of specialty isn't worth much in th US.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Kid, give me an offer and I am off.

My company (LINK) does have jobs in Germany... I have no idea if they're near you or not or if any of the jobs fit your skills or interests. It looks like our offices are Munchen, Frankfurt, and Dusseldorf for the most part.