Tag: jobs

SAS to hire 94 Scots

Posted on April 5, 2013 by - News

Flag_of_Scotland.svgSAS has said that it will be generating 94 new Scotland jobs within its new Advanced Analytics lab and its expansion of  its Scottish Research and Development Centre for Public Security.

The project is supported by £1.3 million from Scottish Development International (SDI), a partnership between the Scottish government, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Island’s Enterprise.

SAS has said as well as creating the new job opportunities it will also safeguard the current employee base of 126.

The partnership was announced during a Scotland Week meeting with Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond who was visiting New York as part of his programme to boost investment and employment in Scotland.

If follows the news yesterday with Daktari, an American life sciences company, also announcing it too would be creating 126 new jobs as a result of locating its global manufacturing base in Inverness.

Speaking from New York, Mr Salmond said the move by SAS was a “significant feather in Scotland’s cap”.

He added the new facility would position Scotland as an “international centre of excellence for big data analytics” and create a “substantial number” of highly-skilled, high-value jobs.

SAS said it was pleased to be spreading its wings in Scotland, claiming the investments allowed it to see the real “Scottish potential” with access to a pool of talent from Scottish universities.

Microsoft rumoured to be building smaller Surface tab

Posted on April 2, 2013 by - News

surface-rtMicrosoft is once again trying to ensure that Surface does as well as it possibly can.

According to Softpedia, the company is apparently working on a smaller sized Surface tablet in a bid to compete with the more miniature devices on the market.

It is thought that the new tablet will have a display around seven or eight inches and run Windows Blue after eagle eyed sources spotted a job ad on Coroflot’s job page asking for developers.

It said the Surface Team focused on building devices that “fully express the Windows vision.”

It hinted at a smaller tab, claiming that a “fundamental part” of its strategy  was having “desirable and powerful devices that enable the experiences people want, and elicit their excitement.

“We are currently building the next generation and Surface needs you,” the ad concluded.

Microsoft hasn’t faced the figures it had desired with its new baby. Last month Bloomberg reported that the company had sold about 400,000 Surface Pro tablets since their debut last month. In addition, it only managed to sell a little over a million Surface RT tablets.

It’s tried to conquer this by making more railroads into China, deciding last month to extend its selling channels for the Surface RT tablets, which it previously only sold through two distributors- its online store and chain store for electronics, Suning.

Previously the giant had not been able to go through further channels as a result of an exclusive distie deal with Suning, but last month sources said that this deal expired in February, paving the way for Microsoft to pick up new channels.

In a bid to boost sales it was rumoured to be turning to four new distribution partners aboard. These included PC Mall, Sundan, One Zero and 360buy.

Computacenter says “stumble in Germany” resulted in profit loss

Posted on March 12, 2013 by - News

poundsComputacenter has reported a four percent profit loss for the full year claiming it “stumbled in Germany”.

The British company said its profits stood at £71.3 million in 2012, compared to £74.2 million in 2011.

It blamed the loss on higher costs from new contracts, which bled into margins in the services business in Germany, its second-largest market by revenue.

And 2013 doesn’t look to be an easy road with the company claiming that this year would be dependant on the speed of recovery from the “problem contracts” in Germany, which it said was unpredictable.

However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom with the company reporting group revenues jumping 2.2 percent to £2.91 billion  compared to 2011’s  £2.85 billion.

Mike Norris, Chief Executive of the company said: “We expect 2013 to be a year of progress for Computacenter. While the Group financial outcome for 2013 will be dependent on the in-year performance of Germany and the speed at which we recover from our problem contracts, which is unpredictable, we are confident that these contracts will improve.

“More importantly, winning, contracting and taking on new contracts successfully, is more fundamental to the long-term growth of the business and its strategic development. This will be underpinned by our new Group operating model, which has taken effect in the UK and Germany, since the start of 2013.”

Permanent IT rolls down 12 percent

Posted on February 18, 2013 by - News

ukflagThe Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) has said that despite some relief in unemployment from the Office for National Statistics, in IT, permanent rolls have plunged more than 12 percent while temporary vacancies dropped almost seven percent.

The body said that year on year, to December 2012, there has been a fall of almost ten percent in permanent and temporary vacancies. IT professionals, if they can find the work, are increasingly doing temporary assignments, at 6.5 percent growth year on year.

Chief exec of APSCo, Ann Swain, said in a statement that the wider economic picture isn’t helping. Employers themselves don’t have the cash nor confidence to invest in permanent hires.

“However,” Swain pointed out, “recent data from the PMI Index has revealed that the services sector, which accounts for more than three quarters of economic output, has returned to growth”.

This, Swain said, makes her “bullish” about the first quarter of 2013 “from a hiring perspective”.

A skills shortage has been looming as well, according to a 2012 report from eSkills UK.  Employers were, at the time, looking for ICT managers, strategy, and planning professionals, as well as technical skills in SQL, C, C#, .NET and Java. But APSCo’s point is that with the uncertain economic backdrop, even companies who need permanent workers are worried that they will not be able to afford them.

Barclays slashes jobs to appease fat cats

Posted on February 12, 2013 by - News

fatter catBarclays has announced that it will be handing out the pink slips to around 3700 of its 140000 staff.

The P45s will be handed to 1,800 bankers in the corporate and investment section, while 1,900 staff at the company’s retail and business banking arm will also face the axe.

The move, announced by the company’s new chief exec Antony Jenkins, forms part of a cost cutting strategic exercise- codenamed “project Transform” – which fat cats hope will see the bank’s total cost base reduced by £1.7 billion to £16.8 billion in 2015.

The bank is also moving to try and appease the public and shareholders claiming that it will close down the controversial tax planning business. It has also set aside £1.6 billion to compensate customers sold payment protection insurance (PPI) and £850 million for people who were sold interest rate hedging products.

And it’s also ensuring it doesn’t get caught up in a fat cat bonus barny, claiming that its
staff bonus pool was down 16 percent in 2012, with the average bonus it paid last year fell 13 percent to £13,300.

Over at the investment arm of the bank, while the average bonus paid to staff fell 17 percent  to £54,100.

The strategy arrives as the bank announced its  latest financials, which showed a rise in profits by 26 percent to £7.05 billion.

Intel denies pay freeze claims

Posted on February 8, 2013 by - Gossip, News, Opinions

IntelIntel’s HQ  in Satan Clara has poured water over rumours that it has imposed pay freezes and left important vacancies open in a bid to save cash.

The comments from the company come following claims that the company was making these cuts in a bid to claw back the cash and make up its falling profits, which  dropped 27 percent in the last quarter.

Earlier this week the reliable sources told ChannelEye there had been “talk” of pay freezes, while vacancies that had been left open for months had yet to be filled.

When Intel was initially contacted regarding these claims, its press machines told us that the company didn’t “comment on rumour or speculations”,

However, it seems someone has had a change of heart – or woken from its media slumber, with the company now issuing a further statement.

It told ChannelEye today: “Just to follow up with confirmation from HQ.  [ChannelEye’s] report is false, there are no pay cuts or frozen hiring.”

We say watch this space.