Calvin’s Hub

Well I have to admit that this “recession” thingy is real and is not yet going away anytime soon. A LOT of people are losing jobs to start the year. Thankfully, I still have a job and that our project is still very much alive.

We recently heard of Intel closing its decade-old factory here in the Philippines. That’s about 1,800 workers who will be affected. It seems that Intel Malaysia, Oregon and California have not been spared bringing the total of affected employees to around 5,000 to 6,000.

After suffering its first annual operating loss in 14 years, Sony will close one of its two television plants in Japan and leaving 2,000 employees jobless. That’s after already cutting 16,000 jobs early December last year.

Not spared from Sony’s failure is Ericsson whose net profit dropped 31 percent and is blaming it to its partnership with Sony. This prompted them to trim 5,000 jobs at the start of the year.

Microsoft who missed the target of its quarterly profit will most likely reduced 6% – 8% of its 95,000 workforce. That’s around 6,000 to 8,000 employees.

Let’s not forget about Accenture Manila, a BPO company who recently cut some of its Solutions Division personnel for lack of projects. Unofficial estimated employees affected is in the 500 range. Also doing some more lay-offs is its Solutions Workforce in India.

Other notable companies who have already reduced their global workforce and closed some of their offices are Bose (1,000 employees), AMD (another round this time 1,100) Motorola (3,000 – 4,000), Creative (2,700), BMW (26,000), Western Digital (2,500) and Warner Bros. (800) among others.

If you’re curious as to what other companies have been doing more workforce reduction, check out LayoffBlog.com. Seems like Apple and Nintendo are hardly affected by the financial crisis as they finished strong last year.

I guess Filipinos in general have not felt the hard times unless they’re dealing with foreign businesses. I hope President Obama could successfully turn things around by the end of the year. I’m sure if that happens, everything else will fall back into place.

So all of us who are still employed should be really thankful for our jobs. If you’re not happy with your job, think of the thousands who are jobless to start the year.

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Filed under: Grrrrr