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38 Comments
- onimusha115, on 01/26/2009, -0/+16Maybe I'm just a cynic or simply oblivious to whats really going on around me, but I can't help but think that some of this is spun up by the media. Every day I read another story about how this monster of a recession is crippling another company. For one a certain percentage of business will close up every year either due to poor management or simply a ***** idea to begin with, good economy or not. So I'm wondering if the media is just jumping to point out more of this than usual now. The other thing is that some companies may really not be all that worse off than a year or two ago but are jumping at the chance to restructure and increase profit margins. This is the perfect time to do that, they have an excuse. If company X just up and laid off a sizable portion of its workforce to increase profits in a good economy they would look pretty bad in the eye of the consumer but now they can do the same thing and people say oh the recession strikes again. Don't get me wrong, there is definitely a recession going on but I'm not sure I believe its as bad as its being made out to be. Just like speculation messed up the oil industry the media is going to screw the economy even more by losing consumer confidence.
- RajAtWork, on 01/26/2009, -0/+15That is some powerful journalism there. Both Microsoft and Amazon are in Seattle, not in in Silicon Valley.
- Wadadli24, on 01/26/2009, -0/+15dugg for unrelated thumbnail of random asian chick
- kezia1, on 01/26/2009, -0/+12"tight fisted..."
Tight fisted what? I MUST KNOW!!
Edit: Oh, customers... - TheTaoOfBill, on 01/26/2009, -2/+9Hopefully the recession is done by the time I graduate.
- SniperGX1, on 01/26/2009, -3/+9It's just FUD. There are tons of companies hiring here. Just because some bloated corps slash jobs doesn't mean there isn't opportunity.
- khoa1708, on 01/26/2009, -1/+7I'm glad Obama is trying to fix the education system... see case #1 above
- chungmaster, on 01/26/2009, -1/+7***** i'm trying to get into college and they're cutting a ton of spots. hopefully when i get out the recession will get better.
- deleo, on 01/26/2009, -1/+7Obama just took office, and Clinton hasn't been in office for 8 years. Don't you think you could lay a little bit of the blame on Bush and feel ok about it?
- regeya, on 01/26/2009, -1/+6Honestly, I went to college in the mid- to late-90s, and I avoided the "drop out of school to get in on the gravy train NOW" mentality. I figured the boom would be a bust eventually.
My job is somewhat low-paying, but at least I'm not a bitter C++ monkey railing against the government from my parents' basement. :-> - linuxhansl, on 01/26/2009, -1/+5Typical American short sighted thinking. In a few months this is all over. And then these same companies have to rehire and retrain thousands of workers at huge cost; and this is in addition to the severance paid out during the current lay-offs. Stupid. That happens when you let business administrators run companies.
Take Toyota for example. They did not fire anybody, instead they're spending this time to train their employees. In the end they'll have a happy, motivated, and trained workforce. If the company looks out for you, you look out for the company.
The CEO of the company where I work (large company San Francisco Bay Area) just re-iterated that now is the time to _hire_ all that potential talent. Yes, it may hurt the bottom line for a few quarters but in the long run this will save a _lot_ of time and money.
Oh well. - DMCer, on 01/26/2009, -0/+4FTA: "[Silicon] Valley, the strip of land in northern California that is home to household names like Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc"
Last time I checked, Amazon's closest HQ building was 2 states north. - kimgh, on 01/26/2009, -0/+3Well, actually:
Microsoft DOES have facilities in Silicon Valley (Mountain View, for example). OTOH, I don't know whether any of the layoffs occurred there or not. - zenerdiode, on 01/26/2009, -0/+3Sis works for apple. She's sweating bullets. Ain't no party over there either.
Buddy recently got axed at Yahoo. Was lucky enough to jump to Google, but know he's sweating bullets, cause of the hiring freeze and talk of trimming the fact.
I work for a non-Silicon Valley company. I'm sweating bullets. Sucks all the way around. - noumuon, on 01/26/2009, -1/+4makes me glad i didn't choose computer science as a major...
- KibibyteBrain, on 01/26/2009, -0/+3Apple doesn't have the best reputation in the Valley for the work/life balance of its employees, which tends to approximate infinity in many cases. I believe Steve Jobs has at times apologized to the families of his engineers. Great products come at a cost...
Plus, part of the problem of these serial recessions is that it makes laying off employees only make more and more sense. IBM just laid off a ton of good hardware guys? Well, MediumBusiness Inc. now has better reason to do the same with theirs and then steal back some of those IBM guys. Microsoft just let 5000 go? Well, god knows about every Windows dev shop in the world will want to snag some of those guys, just for what they know. The problem is that this thinking reaches diminishing returns fast, and just tends to wreck the ecosystem. - ccalabro, on 01/26/2009, -0/+3thats scorpion girl, i am not sure how i knew that.
- inactive, on 01/26/2009, -0/+3you fool - his dyslexic speeches, poor cultural awareness and lack of executive & governmental competence was what was funny about him. his bad spelling was just sad. like you.
- brandita, on 01/26/2009, -0/+2I almost want to stop reading the news because all I read about is more layoffs and then I get worried and have to buy more anti-anxiety drugs and then i get depressed and have to buy anti-depressants and then I get even more broke because my company cut my health plan and then I can't save that money for retirement which I really need to do because my company cut my 401k. At least I still have Digg.
/not entirely serious - inactive, on 01/26/2009, -1/+3.. some of these people who are getting laid off are going to turn around and create something that will make them millions. A couple great new things will come out of this. but until then.... erggg
- SniperGX1, on 01/26/2009, -0/+2HQ in Seattle but they both have large facilities in the valley
- babyheadout, on 01/26/2009, -3/+5Can't everyone just work for Apple?
/Not a fanboi - angryfirelord, on 01/26/2009, -0/+2The other problem is that we went through a decade of a bubble market. First we had the dot-com bubble and then we had the housing bubble. Guess what happens with bubbles? They pop. So when the market here begins self-correcting, everyone starts pointing fingers at everyone and then asks for more government spending. If we kept the government out of the market (no stimulus packages) and let the companies shed the extra weight, this recession could be over in 2-3 years. However, if the govt. continues to inject more money and enact greater regulatory measures, then we could be in this mess for quite a while.
- linuxhansl, on 01/26/2009, -0/+1Of course. Somebodystart talking about the "Recession". Then some people get scared, reduce spending, some companies get worried, VC's get worried, thereby creating the very recession. To some extend this is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In addition bad news make excellent news stories. - DMCer, on 01/26/2009, -0/+1Might want to rethink that: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123119236117055127 ...
- jayll, on 01/26/2009, -0/+1Theres a few scorpions on her chest.
- mr5150, on 01/26/2009, -0/+1hope you didn't choose business banking and finance as that really sucks right now and for many years to come.....many finance people are going back to school for a year to get a teaching diploma and move into the state dished out dole of teaching........with a matching paycheck that sucks.
- TriTech, on 01/26/2009, -1/+2If the stimulus package gets passed, they can become construction workers...
- celebscreen, on 01/26/2009, -0/+1Bottom line, companies with poor management are currently laying people off, so they can keep their million yearly bonus.
Companies with a slight better long-term vision are hiring people because there's more choice now and they have more opportunities to hire skilled employees. - Billaeon, on 01/26/2009, -0/+1<cough>Redmond<cough>
- noumuon, on 01/26/2009, -0/+1why would i want to rethink that? i'm a mathematics major. mathematics != computer science
- julesbond007, on 01/26/2009, -1/+1You and McCain's economic adviser make a good couple. So you're saying that the recession is in our heads? Did you read about the fourth quarter reports from most companies? GE lost 46%...That's a real number. The media definitely tries to scare people, but the recession is real.
Some companies also jump on the chance to fire people they don't like. Here is the deal though...cutting the workforce without reason is not the goal of companies, unless it's useless work (recruiters, coordinators, etc).
The companies in fact lose money for cutting employees. Consulting for example: say you charge a client $500/hour and pay 5 employees $40/hour to do the work. That's a huge profit. The more clients you have the more employees you need, and the more money you make. But if there is few clients, then there is no need for a large number of employees. That's where the recession comes from. - brandita, on 01/26/2009, -1/+1I already graduated.
- Ajajadude, on 01/26/2009, -1/+1"If company X just up and laid off a sizable portion of its workforce to increase profits in a good economy they would look pretty bad in the eye of the consumer..."
Actually, it seems anytime a company does anything (legal) to get a slight rise in profits, it's rewarded in the stock market. To me, logic is a little screwy in the business world. - santiago1, on 01/26/2009, -1/+1 Do you mean BnL?
- headgames, on 01/26/2009, -0/+0head in the sand?
- shylove, on 01/26/2009, -1/+1Maybe everyone could have worked for Apple if the computer world hadn't been turned into a giant money sucking machine that barely works and has back doors for all the intelligence agencies to slip in an out of. Now they get first dibs on sucking the lifeblood out of everyday people and businesses too and leaving no money left over to hire actual people. The rest of the tech world will just have to stand in line for the few crumbs leftover and wait for the entire top heavy economic structure to topple over due to its gluttonous ways.
- third_eye, on 01/26/2009, -2/+1Hope you're class of 2012
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