Biggest job cuts of IT industry in 2009
After the worst recession in US and bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008, the year 2009 was also not one of the best years for the worldwide IT industry, especially in the area of layoffs. The last year’s tough economic climate had forced various companies for cutting their workforce to fight recession, drop in demand and cost cutting.
Also, IT sector was no different from other sector, where IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Google, etc cut headcount to cope up with the slowdown pressure. Here, the feature discusses some of the largest job cuts in the IT industry in 2009.
IBM
International Business Machines (IBM), the technology giant had reduced its headcount by 16,000 in 2009, according to employee group Alliance@IBM. Big Blue had announced in March that it will cut about 5,000 jobs in the United States, which accounted for over 4% of IBM’s US workforce. It is also reported that the company had shifted many jobs to low-cost destinations like India and emerging countries to maintain profits. Besides US, the company also reduced its number in Canada.
Microsoft Corp.
In its 34-year history, Microsoft Corp, the world’s top software giant had announced first mass layoffs in January 2009. The company said that it will lay off about 5,000 jobs in 2009. The reduction in the number came as the company announced that fourth-quarter profits fell 11% to .17 billion. The company had reported that the job cuts will reduce its annual operating expense by .5 billion and will lower its fiscal 2009 capital expenditures by 0 million.
In November 2009, the company further reduced its 800 people from operations. The layoffs affected jobs in R&D, marketing, sales, finance, legal and corporate affairs, HR and IT. The company had 91,005 employees worldwide.
Intel Corp.
Intel, the world’s largest chip maker had also feel heat from the recession and announced that it will close chip plants to slow down its manufacturing capacity which resulted about 5,000 to 6,000 job cuts in the last year. The company plans to close its plants at Santa Clara (California), Hillsboro (Oregon), Penang (Malaysia) and Cavite (Philippines). The company added that not all employees will leave the company; some may be shifted to other facilities.
Yahoo Inc.
Last year, Yahoo got the new CEO Carl Batz in place of its co-founder Jerry Yang. After that the company planned to cut about 5% of its workforce in April. The job cuts will streamline the operations and eliminate duplication of efforts, the company said. The company has about 13,600 employees by the end of 2008.
Besides Yahoo, Google also announced that it will reduce its number, but the number was just hundred.
Nokia Corp.
The world’s number one mobile phone maker had also announced about 4,000 job reductions in the last year, which includes 1,300 voluntary redundancy packages. In January, last year, the company reported a drop in quarterly earnings. The job cuts targeted to save about billion annually. Further, the company said in April that it would reduce investment in creating new services, helping it to cut 450 jobs. Recently, the mobile giant reduced 330 employees at its R&D units in Denmark and Finland, and 220 jobs in Japan.
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