Tag: layoffs

Axeman cometh at Dell

Posted on September 17, 2020 by - News

Tin box shifter Dell has confirmed it is going to be axing more jobs.

In July, the tech giant confirmed it would be cutting an unspecified number of jobs, but said that the decision was made earlier in 2020 and was not a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

COO Jeff Clarke told staff of the layoffs during a quarterly all-hands meeting  and that the job losses will span across the organisation.

Dell said it was addressing  its cost structure to make sure it’s as competitive as it should be now and for future opportunities.

Dell’s job cuts are nothing to do with coronavirus

Posted on August 3, 2020 by - News

Dell has confirmed that an unspecified number of job cuts,was based on decisions made early in 2020 and unrelated to the  pandemic.

The vendor refused to put a figure on the number of employees affected, but it said: “Like all businesses right now, we’re taking a number of proactive steps to prepare for the uncertainties presented by COVID-19. We recently made some workforce reductions that reflect decisions made in early 2020 as part of regular evaluations of our business structure, and weren’t related to the pandemic.”

The number of redundancies have been rumoured to be about six percent of Dell’s 160,000 workforce globally and under 2,000.

IBM is still planning huge lay-offs

Posted on February 4, 2015 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCDespite denials from IBM that it is laying off more than 110,000 IBM employees, the hack who revealed the story for Forbes is standing by it.

Rober Cringely ran a story that 110,000 IBM employees laid off and the ever shrinking Big Blue said it would be more like 8,000.  However writing in his bog  Cringely said that Big Blue is spinning.

“I think IBM is dissembling, fixating on the term 110,000 layoffs, which by the way I never used. Whatever the word, what counts is how many fewer people will be paid by IBM on March 1 compared to today,” he said.

He said his sources tell him that IBM has other ways of getting its workforce down rather than ordinary layoff.  He claimed that IBM is pushing some people out using poor performance rathings.

This includes people who were on IBM’s “bridge to retirement’ program that took that option, thinking it kept them ‘safe’ from layoffs/firings.

“There is a loophole that says they can be dismissed for ‘performance’ reasons, which is exactly why many of my long-time, devoted, hardworking peers are suddenly getting the worst rating, a 3. It’s so they can be dismissed without any separation package and no hit to the RA, or workforce rebalancing, fund,” Cringely said.

It used to be something like 10 percent of employees ‘had’ to be labeled 3s, but recently IBM required an increase in number of 3s.

Cringely said IBM got rid of some employees by ‘stuffing’ them into the Lenovo x86 acquisition, shipping tons of people over there that never even worked on x86 stuff.

Lenovo has discovered this and has given some of them a way better package – year salary and benefits, and taking it up quietly with IBM, he added.

Still it would be hard to fire a quarter of your staff by the back-door in this way, but as Cringely said the 110,000 figure was not suggested in his original story.

 

AMD Cuts Workforce – Sea Change 101 for Sailors?…,

Posted on October 17, 2014 by - News

AMD LayoffsJust one week and a day after assuming her new roll as AMD’s CEO Dr. Lisa Su announced a reduction in force amounting to seven percent of the AMD’s current workforce of 10,149 employees.

The fallowing of ~700 people follows two rounds of layoffs under Rory Read’s three year tenure.

AMD did not provide any information about where the cuts would be made – the company recently split into two divisions “Computing and Graphics”, and “Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom”. Contacts indicate that “Computing and Graphics” will receive a majority of the “hits”.

Last Thursday’s warning by Microchip Chief Executive Steve Sanghi that a correction will spread more broadly across the industry in the near future sent shares of chipmakers lower last Friday.

Microchip is a broad spectrum supplier into the Chinese and Asian marketplace, booking revenue only after it is shipped by distributors – a closely coupled supply chain that quickly indicates impending sea changes. AMD shares a similar situation in China, the company’s biggest market, substantiating Microchip’s warning. Whether this is the beginning of a prolonged downturn or is merely another “noise blip” on the radar is entwined in controversy.

Strangely enough, AMD’s arch nemesis Intel, reported rather glowing results on Tuesday indicating that AMD might be suffering from Intel’s competitive resurgence in Asia. The fact that Intel is devoting resources to system level integration at the SoC level may now be having an effect on both competitors.

AMD’s experienced a 65% drop in quarterly profits and is expecting the current quarter to be 13% lower than the period ended in September. The company’s share price fell 6% to $2.49 in after-hours trading. The share price has dropped 43% in three months as of close Thursday.

Su went on to assure analysts that the company was moving toward customized chips for applications beyond videogames hinting at two customers that had the potential of bringing in $3 Billion in additional revenue over the next three years.

TechEye Take

The first time I saw Rory Read perform in front of analysts was somewhat of an embarrassment. He became so animated on stage that an additional two flaps of his arms per minute would have gotten him airborne (I heard that he fired his stage coach soon thereafter). His resignation came as no surprise, only late by three years. Lisa Su was the only stand-up with credibility and has remained so since.

Can we expect Dr. Su to right the AMD ship? She’s very smart and well experienced in the land of semiconductors and if anyone can accomplish the miracle required to make AMD a player she’d be my pick…,

Dell offers voluntary redundancies

Posted on December 6, 2013 by - News

Dell logoA number of staff at Dell were offered voluntary redundancy, it has emerged.

The Wall Street Journal said it had got hold of an internal memorandum giving people the chance to take voluntary redundancy with the cut off date being the 20th of December.

The Journal chatted to a spinner at the company who would not say how many people Dell wanted to lay off. He also refused to say whether the tin giant would introduce compulsory redundancies if not enough people offered to fall on the sword of their own account.

He did say that Dell wanted to improve its cost structure.

Like other PC manufacturers worldwide, Dell has faced declining sales as people dash to swipe tablets and smartphones rather than face the wonders of Windows 8.1 and Intel microprocessors.