The Recession is Over, but someone forgot to tell the companies to stop firing people

Hammered by a steep drop in the sale of traditional packaged video games, Electronic Arts Inc. on Monday said it would cut 1,500 jobs, more than 16% of its workforce, even as the game publisher announced plans to acquire online game developer Playfish Inc. in a deal valued at up to $400 million.

www.latimes.com...

You read that right, 16% of its workforce is about to find them selves at home playing video games rather than making them.

Sprint Nextel Corp. said it plans to cut 2,000 to 2,500 jobs, or roughly 5% of its work force, as the cellphone-service provider seeks to cut annual costs by at least $350 million.

It's the second significant round of cuts this year as the embattled company struggles to return to profitability and subscriber growth. The Overland Park, Kan., company currently employs about 42,000 people.

online.wsj.com...

Apparently, the first 8,000 people fired wasn't enough!

Microsoft is cutting another 800 jobs worldwide as it attempts to cope with falling demand for its products. ... Earlier this year Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said the company would be cutting "up to" 5,000 positions, although [this] takes the company beyond that initial figure.
...
The move comes shortly after the company reported falling profits and revenues in its most recent financial filings. ... Until this year the world's biggest software company ... had never made any large-scale redundancies.

blogs.computerworld.com...

Microsoft NEVER made large scale layoffs before.

The Seattle area is going to get another jobless jolt Thursday, with RealNetworks planning to lay off 4 percent of its workforce, sources said.

That's a small number--just about 70 people out of its 1,700-person staff--but the move comes on the heels of layoffs of another 800 employees at nearby Microsoft on Wednesday. The software giant has cut thousands of jobs over the last year, part of a move to eliminate 5,000 positions by mid-2010.

news.cnet.com...

I though the Nasdaq was having a record year!

Detroit -- While General Motors Co. does not plan any deep job cuts, the automaker still has too many hourly workers and could permanently eliminate some of the 6,000 to 7,000 workers currently on layoff.

Some of the workers are temporarily or indefinitely laid off and while GM is adding shifts at a few plants to boost output, some of the workers not called back could lose their jobs, CEO Fritz Henderson said Thursday at the Renaissance Center.

www.detnews.com...

I thought the bailout was supposed to save or create jobs! Gee, thanks Obama.

LONDON, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- A disastrous summer is prompting British Airways to lay off about 4,900 workers, or 12 percent of its staff, company officials say.

The job cuts -- which surpass the 3,700-layoff target previously announced -- come after BA announced it had lost $485 million in the six months ending Sept. 30, The Times of London reported Saturday.

www.upi.com...

I guess it is a global recovery!

Yep, recession's over all right.

Now it's a depression.

www.xconomy.com...

www.xconomy.com...

www.dailyjobcuts.com...

portalseven.com...

It must be over. After all, didn't Obama SAY that it is over?
Obama can't be wrong, so your statistics must be off. Those people aren't really out of work.
They are just on an extended vacation, which will end, when the American people get wise and throw Congress out on their backsides.

Well if you think people are getting laid off now, just wait until this healthcare bill get passed. People are going to be rushing to lower their employee count, before they get on the hook and have to either pay for care or pay penalties.

reply to post by apacheman


According to the last link you provide, 11/9/09 was brutal. I am just waiting for phase II of the economic collapse. After the holiday sales fizzle, there will be no hiding from this fake recovery. Most retail businesses operate all year at or below break even to make their profits during the holidays. When the unemployed masses, and the tenuously employed masses decide to skimp this year on the Christmas presents, the economy will go into a tail spin.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


No, they have chosen to leave the work force. They just didn't know about their decision until their bosses told them.

reply to post by HotSauce

Well if you think people are getting laid off now, just wait until this healthcare bill get passed.

You've got that right, my friend. I've seen estimates that it will lead to 5.5 million jobs lost:

Washington Democrats have ignored these concerns and instead propose funding their government takeover of health care with more than $750 billion in new taxes that will fall heavily on entrepreneurs who run small businesses, and harsh mandates that require employers to either provide "government-approved" coverage or pay another steep tax. According to a model developed by senior White House economists, these sorts of tax increases would result in as many as 5.5 million more American jobs lost over the next 10 years.

www.sphere.com...

reply to post by finemanm

No, they have chosen to leave the work force. They just didn't know about their decision until their bosses told them.

I stand corrected finemanm!
Second line.

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus

You've got that right, my friend. I've seen estimates that it will lead to 5.5 million jobs lost:

Washington Democrats have ignored these concerns and instead propose funding their government takeover of health care with more than $750 billion in new taxes that will fall heavily on entrepreneurs who run small businesses, and harsh mandates that require employers to either provide "government-approved" coverage or pay another steep tax. According to a model developed by senior White House economists, these sorts of tax increases would result in as many as 5.5 million more American jobs lost over the next 10 years.

www.sphere.com...

Well now if that isn't Progressive Progress what is? They don't know how to make new legislation that won't destroy jobs. But I guess in their defense FDR was good at creating temporary government paid jobs. Maybe that is how you build a successful economy.

reply to post by HotSauce

Well now if that isn't Progressive Progress what is? They don't know how to make new legislation that won't destroy jobs. But I guess in their defense FDR was good at creating temporary government paid jobs. Maybe that is how you build a successful economy.

Actually, that is their plan. In order to reach their "goal" of a cum-by-ya-ya social structure, they must make all citizens completely dependent upon the government. In order to do that, they must destroy all real jobs, and replace them with do-nothing government jobs. It doesn't matter whether they are temporary or permanent government jobs, since zero times zero is still zero. Once they reach zero productivity, then we can all do what the citizens of the old USSR did:

"We pretend to work and the government pretends to pay us".
Welcome comrade to the new socialist republic of the Progressive wing-nuts.

The recession is over, as long as you look at it like the Obama / Reid / Pelosi regime and the talking heads are doing, without factoring in unemployment numbers which are still growing. With consumer purchasing power down due to unemployment, under employment, and fear of unemployment; the only way a company can show a profit now is to layoff more and more employees thereby exacerbating the situation even further. This is not going to end anytime soon.

Lay offs this quarter as worse than every for everyone around me. I know so many people getting laid off- 5 friends since August. It makes me sick to even consider what would happen if my husband were laid off- oh wait- i know- my mothers basement....

reply to post by xynephadyn

It makes me sick to even consider what would happen if my husband were laid off- oh wait- i know- my mothers basement.

Be thankul that you have your mother's basement as an option. Many people do not have that option, and for them, it's tent city.
This country is quickly becoming a third world nation. At some point, the entire structure will collapse:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by xynephadyn


Why can't I convince my wife to move in with my parents? I am so tired carrying her dead weight and paying for everything while she goes to school for the fourth time.

reply to post by finemanm


The day to watch will be Black Friday...chances are it'll be Red Friday this year.

I can't imagine there's going to be a whole lot of shopping getting done, nearly everyone I know is planning a no-gift or very-few-gift Christmas this year.

By Christmas itself, the death blows should be in for many small retailers. 1Q 2010 is gonna be really messy.

reply to post by finemanm



those listed jobs, around 15,000, might seem insignificant at first glance

but looking at the situation from a different angle...these 15,000 lay-offs
were not that necessary at all.
Here's why.... the structure of the corporate model is all screwy...

the top execs & board members of the typical corporation takes home
more than +400 times the salary of the average (and expendable) line worker.

next the pricing of the corporations 'product' is figured with the outrageous salaries, and bonuses, and a 10% Profit built into the MSRP...
which by all accounts is too top heavy to begin with.


A real-world remedy would be to cut the prices of the service/product
and to lop-off the 'fat' in the form oftoo high compensation & obligatory bonuses to the elite exec's. Then a sustainable business model would be achieved.

? how many of you could readjust your lives to be without overpriced cable TV an/or cell phone carriers that charge excessive prices?
Those are just two examples---the whole economic house-of-cards
is in the same mess... all top heavy & thinking that they require bonuses & guaranteed profits for inefficient business models...

~sheeze~

Some place in Lexington (KY, not VA) gave their employees pay raises.

They laid off I think it was 20% of their workers right after the pay raises though.

It was on the front page of the local paper, but I didn't buy the paper from the rack and read the whole article.

That's totally wrong to do that to people.

Meanwhile, as people continue to lose jobs, including one today in my family, there is this disgusting news:

Banker's bonuses: 40% bigger this year
By Ben Rooney, CNNMoney.com staff reporter
November 9, 2009: 2:00 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Bonuses at financial firms worldwide will increase by an average of 40% this year, according to an annual report released Monday.

Options Group, a New York-based executive search and compensation consultancy, said near-record revenues from fixed-income, commodities and foreign exchange trading will help push bankers' bonuses back up after a slump in 2008.

The report, which was based on data from 300,000 industry professionals worldwide, also showed that bonuses are increasingly being offered in the form of multi-year stock options.

money.cnn.com...

These are the executives who run the banks that WE bailed out, with TAXPAYER money, the same banks that are holding on to the bailout money, and refusing to lend to those taxpayers.

How many more insults can we take?

Companies are abusing the current situation. This has nothing to do with the current administration.

The staff that's left is being given new targets with no incentives and you either comply or you are fired. Companies are getting away with things that were unthinkable before the economy tanked.

No board will give this up easily, they are making money, despite the "bad economy". Why would any board reinstate previous benefits? As long as the media supports the depression, they won't.

I'm tired of this........a lot more could be said, but I'm tired of it.

We lived in a false economy. Im from ireland, over here we called its a bubble, we had a massive amount of construction jobs because of our fake economy, and when it collapsed, 200,000 people in construction lost thier jobs( roughly 2/3 ). thats alot in small ireland.

I cant decide whether there will never be enough jobs to meet demand again, or if another fake economy will start. probably the latter because of how money works (zeitgiest addendum anyone?).