President Obama today sought to temper recent optimism about an economic recovery, warning that the “hard times” will not end this year and there will be “more job loss, more foreclosures and more pain” before the recession ends.
While warning of future economic hardship, Obama also touted the encouraging signs in the economy as springing from the “extraordinary action” of his administration, including the $787-billion economic stimulus legislation, that he said have helped spur consumer demand and restore the flow of credit vital to businesses.
Obama has said twice in the past few days that Caterpillar CEO James Owens indicated his company would be able to rehire some of the 20,000 recently laid-off employees. “Yesterday, Jim, the head of Caterpillar, said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off,” Obama said in Peoria.
But when asked if the stimulus could do that, Owens said, “I think, realistically, no. The honest reality is we’re probably going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again.”
Hit by expectations of further financial losses, Pioneer Corp. has announced 10,000 job cuts, plant closings in the US and UK, and plans to leave the plasma display market. Job cuts will include 6,000 full-time salaried employees and 4,000 contract workers both in Japan and other countries.
In a move resulting in some 350 job layoffs, the company will shut down two overseas plasma display assembly plants, located in Pomona, California, and Castleford, Britain. Pioneer plans to exit the plasma display business entirely by March of this year, according to wire reports.
The Sunnyvale[,CA]-based Network Appliance Inc. on Wednesday reported a $75 million loss in the third quarter, or 23 cents a share, and said it would cut about 6 percent — or about 500 people — from its global work force.
U.K. unemployment rose in January to the highest level in almost a decade, threatening to erode support for Prime Minister Gordon Brown as the recession deepens.
The number of people receiving jobless benefits climbed 73,800 to 1.23 million, the most since July 1999 and the 12th increase in succession, the Office for National Statistics said today in London.
With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who make up 90 percent of the population here and who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield.
The government says the real number is much lower. But the stories contain at least a grain of truth: jobless people here lose their work visas and then must leave the country within a month. That in turn reduces spending, creates housing vacancies and lowers real estate prices, in a downward spiral that has left parts of Dubai — once hailed as the economic superpower of the Middle East — looking like a ghost town.
No one knows how bad things have become, though it is clear that tens of thousands have left, real estate prices have crashed and scores of Dubai’s major construction projects have been suspended or canceled. But with the government unwilling to provide data, rumors are bound to flourish, damaging confidence and further undermining the economy.
Putnam Investments will announce on Thursday details of a round of layoffs in which the asset manager will cut 260 jobs from its 2,400-strong workforce.
Jeff Carney, senior managing director, said the cuts will come from Putnam’s non-investment teams, such as the sales, operations, marketing and products and technology groups.
The layoffs are in part due to Chief Executive Bob Reynold’s plan for Putnam’s new business model, which is to focus on retail mutual funds, retirement accounts and institutional clients, said Carney.
Piper Aircraft handed out dozens of pink slips Tuesday. The Vero Beach company released about 300 workers due to a lack of work. Piper said the deepening global recession made it necessary for this latest round of jobs cuts.
The business is also planning to stop production for one week in April and July to avoid building up unnecessary inventory. The shutdowns will be without pay and will affect all employees in the company from executives to hourly workers.
According to rumors from different sources: “There were several layoffs reported between November – December, 2008 in Oracle’s North America consulting unit. The reduction in force included 140 IT consultants specializing in Siebel, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, and Hyperion products.”
Rumor: “A bunch of people were laid off from Oracle’s business units including utility and retail. Major layoffs are to come in Jan 2009”.
Rumor: “at least 2 people were laid off from PeopleSoft/Oracle unit with no warning.”
Rumor: “20% of the Education staff was let go”.
Update: According to Dow Jones and CNNMoney: “Oracle Corp.’s (NASDAQ: ORCL) fiscal second-quarter net income fell slightly, with the stronger dollar dragging on revenue and profitability.
Revenue for the quarter was lower than Wall Street expected, reflecting both the currency impact and weaker information-technology expenditure, but cost control and a strong flow of maintenance support revenue helped Oracle hit its quarterly earnings per share guidance.”
SAP layoffs: “A source reports that SAP is making some deep cuts in SAP’s Strategic Growth Enterprise (SGE) unit (focused on the SMB space). A 300 sales-related positions were affected in North America.”
Infor layoffs: A source reports that “Infor just laid off a staggering 85% of their senior managers and executives across UK and Europe.”
Update 3 (1-11-2009):
India’s Oracle office in Bangalore lays off 40 people, according to The Time of India.
Oracle India has an extensive network of more than 400 channel and alliance partners in India, which includes Infosys, Satyam, Sonata, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro.
Update 4 (1-12-2009):
Reports said that after the acquisition of i-Flex, Oracle was planning to lay off almost all employees of that company, though the decision was scrapped after intervention of Oracle’s management, as the layoff of all i-Flex employees could project a failure of the acquisition, according to rumor
Update 5 (1-13-2009):
An anonymous report suggests that termination packages were sent out to folks on 1/9/2009 in the US.
PCWorld mentioned LayoffBlog.com in their Oracle layoff-related article.
Oracle cut around 500 positions in its North American sales and consulting businesses last Friday (January 9, 2009), according to WSJ and other sources.
Investors had anticipated a larger scale of the job cuts thanks to the rumors last week that the company was aiming to eliminate thousands of its employees, according to Yahoo Finance
Oracle employed 86,657 globally at the end of November.
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According to AP: “Staring at 533,000 lost jobs, economists were anything but hopeful. Since the start of the recession last December, the economy has shed 1.9 million jobs, and the number of unemployed people has increased by 2.7 million — to 10.3 million now out of work.
Some analysts predict 3 million more jobs will be lost between now and the spring of 2010 — and that the once-humming U.S. economy could stagger backward at a shocking 6 percent rate for the current three-month quarter.”
According to CNNMoney: “As the faltering economy forces companies to cut back, employee perks are among the first things to go. And along with free coffee in the break room, the next thing your employer might axe is its contribution to your retirement savings plan.
About 84% of companies in the U.S. offered employees a 401(k) match as of last year according to Watson Wyatt, a benefits consulting firm.”
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