The Sun Is Setting

An analyst with Sanford Bernstein, Toni Sacconaghi,  had estimated that Sun needed to cut 20% of their workforce to be able to get closer to righting themselves, mainly by raising operating margin by 5% - 7%. 

Well, Sun has now announced a restructuring, which is hopefully realigning the company to be leaner and more efficient, while also laying off between 15% - 18%  (translated, 5,000 - 6,000 employees)

 

Dell Lays off 8.5K

Michael Dell says he is very strong on Dell's future.... having just cut 8,500 salaries, I guess he can definitely be certain on the personnel cost front

Gold Man Sacks Crew

That absolutely has to be my worst headline yet.  But these are punny times.

Anyway, Goldman Sachs is laying off over 3.2K people, or about 10% of their workforce.  But I believe these folks will be sent off with nice severance packages - GS is still very generous with their people.

Print This - Xerox Laying off 5%

Xerox is cutting 3K jobs in the US, about 5% of their workforce. 

My roommate works for Xerox, I'm hoping he and his team are ok.

Signs of a Downturn - Chrysler Layoffs, Plant Shutdown

Chrysler is laying off close to 2,000 people, by shutting down a Delaware factory (despite the favorable tax rules there?), and slowing down work at their Ohio plant. 

That's bad for both places, and should also put some influence on the upcoming elections.

I Need Medicine - Merck Layoffs

Merck announced their Q3 profit fell 28%,... and they're going to lay off 7,200 people.  That's 13% of their workforce.

Ouch!

Even the Bobcats and NBA have Layoffs!

I keep forgetting the NBA is a business.  But the folks working at NBA headquarters, and league offices around the country do know that.  The Charlotte Bobcats, who have probably the league's stingiest ownership after the L.A. Clippers, laid off about 40 people from their marketing and business department, and three front office executives.  And the NBA asked some people to leave, too.

Wow

SAP-ping Morale - SAP's Spending Freeze - Layoffs Not Far Behind

Wisely, SAP is going to stop any unnecessary expenditure.  But the severity of the moves they're making  point to a soon-to-come layoff announcement. 

Among the actions SAP is taking:

• No new expenditure on IT.  At all.  No new equipment to be ordered, at all
• Complete headcount and hiring freeze,  including contractors, interns, students  (wait, why wouldn't you keep students?  Just make them unpaid internships - in this economy, the students would fight for unpaid internships.... as my batch did back during the dot com bust)
• Employees leaving through natural attrition are not to be replaced
• No internal transfers;  yes, you can leave your group, but you won't have a place to land at
• Internal transfers or written offers to new candidates sent before October 7th will be honored, all others to be called off
• Stop working with external recruiters immediately  (oops, sounds like SAP's HR group will be among the first to go!)
• Stop working immediately with all management consultants (ok, so the consulting firms are about to start 'counseling out' folks, too)
• Stop all external training sessions
• No meetings off-campus.  No renting off-campus meeting rooms or hotels
• Cease ALL internal non-customer-facing travel in October…Any non-customer-facing travel already booked should be canceled immediately, even if this incurs penalties  (they're serious!)
• Fly coach from now on

Legally Laid Off - HellerEhrman Shutting Down?

About a week earlier, Silicon Valley-based law firm HellerEhrman had started shutting down, laying off everyone.   Given that HellerEhrman had grown to quite a position of strength over the 2001 - 2007 period, this is a bit hard. 

Their website now seems to reflect that they've completely exited.  The screenshot below is all you will see if you go to http://www.hellerehrman.com/en/.  

The Placement Opportunities link takes you to a page with a list of firms hiring, as well as placement firms.

Poignantly funny - check out the Disclaimer they have on the Placement Opportunities page.  Yes, this used to be a law firm.

 

Bringing Down the House - Zillow Layoffs

Turns out Zillow isn't just reporting a lower value for my house (each time I check, damn it!).  Almost 40 of Zillow's 150 employees are being laid off. 

This is another Seattle based real-estate startup going through some economy-related pains.   As usual, CEO Rich Barton's layoff memo talks about how business is great... but layoffs are needed.

As I keep saying, I think this is good for Zillow.  Bad for the employees, but good for Zillow, and of course those same employees' stock options, in the long term.  (one hopes, anyway - none of the startups I worked at during the dot com bust managed to give me a single dollar back on my stock options).

Signs of a Downturn - Cisco Layoffs

Cisco is laying off 129 people in its Richardson, Texas facility.  Cisco normally does some pruning of its staff on a semi-constant basis, but these many people at one location is a layoff, no painting it any other way. 

Signs of a Downturn - Jive-talk about Layoffs

That was a terrible heading.  Ah well. 

In more bad news for the Oregon startup and tech community, Jive Software (based out of Portland) is laying off about 30% of their staff  (which is interesting, considering they doubled in size since last year, until this announcement).  

They're still building world-beating products, right?  Of course.  That's why their VP of Engineering, Marty Kagan, has left.

They're still selling to an eager customer base, right?  Of course.  That's why their VP of Sales, Scott Campbell, has left.

Its interesting to note that Jive is one of the old startups, having been around since 2001, on only $15 MM in funding.  That probably means they're around break-even, if not slightly profitable.  And they're a Sequoia company, so this is probably one of the early Sequoia kids pruning their trees after the scare tactics their parents have recently employed.