AOL Instant Messenger has been circling the drain of social irrelevance for a while now, and now it’s gotten to the point that the company apparently no longer believes in the future of AIM. AOL laid off 40 workers at its West Coast office, shedding seemingly all critical staff in the Instant Messenger division and leaving only a skeletal support infrastructure. [More]
layoffs
Report: Yahoo May Lay Off Thousands Of Employees
By 3.6.12
Yahoo, which canned its former CEO over the phone a few months ago, is reportedly on the verge of a major restructuring that will reshape the firm the internet forgot into a much smaller version of itself. The company is seemingly set to announce massive layoffs that could number in the thousands. [More]
Postal Service Will Delay Mass Closures
By 12.14.11
The outlook is grim for the U.S. Postal Service, with plans to close thousands of post offices and cutting processing centers, but the inevitable is being postponed for now. [More]
Lowe's Slashes 1,950 Jobs, 20 Stores
By 10.18.11
It’s hard times for hardware folk, with Lowe’s announcing that it will slow growth while closing 20 stores and leaving nearly 2,000 people out of jobs. The company shut down half the stores already and plans to whack the others within the next month. It still plans on growing, opening 25 more stores this year, but will open only 10 or 15 stores a year starting next year rather than the 30 it previously planned. [More]
Hallmark Sells Cards That Express Sympathy For Layoff Victims
By 9.28.11
Oblivious to the possibility that the last thing people who lost their jobs need are cardboard reminders of their misfortune, Hallmark has launched a line of greeting cards geared to the downsized. Among the witticisms you can sign beneath and hand over solemnly: “Don’t think of it as losing your job. Think of it as a time out between stupid bosses.” [More]
Postal Service May Lay Off 120,000
By 8.12.11
The U.S. Postal Service continues to deliver awful news, proposing job cuts of as many as 120,000 workers in an attempt to temper costs in the wake of massive financial losses. Projecting to lose more than $8 billion for the second straight year, the USPS also wants to set up its own health plan, pulling employees out of the federal system. [More]
Signs You're About To Be Laid Off
By 8.8.11
Layoffs are a sorrowful fact of life in this downsizing-obsessed economy, and the earlier you know you’re on the outs, the more time you’ll have to prepare. While it’s counterproductive to over-analyze your work environment while waiting for the inevitable “Can you step into my office?” overture from your supervisor and the HR lady, keeping your eyes open for obvious tells is a good idea. [More]
Hatchet-Happy Companies Hit 16-Month High For Layoffs
By 8.4.11
If you received a pink slip, a cardboard box and a security escort last month, you had plenty of company. Businesses laid off 66,414 employees in July, dampening the buzz from the 114,000 jobs that were created. [More]
BlackBerry Maker Will Cut 2,000 Jobs
By 7.26.11
In a cost-cutting move connected to the BlackBerry’s inability to keep pace with smartphone competitors in the United States, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion revealed plans to slash its workforce by 10 percent, losing 2,000 jobs. [More]
Goldman Will "Sach" 1,000 Workers Because it Only Made A Billion Dollars Last Quarter
By 7.20.11
Goldman Sachs netted only $1.09 billion for the quarter, which isn’t enough to please investors, spurring the company to shed 1,000 jobs. The trading-focused bank suffered a 63 percent drop in trading fees collected from the first quarter. [More]
Cisco Flips 6,500 Workers Into The Unemployment Line
By 7.19.11
Cisco employees are apparently paying for the company’s ill-advised decision to spend $600 million to buy the company that made Flip video cameras. Cisco is reducing its workforce by 16 percent, cutting 6,500 jobs, including 2,100 early retirement volunteers, and losing other employees by selling a business. [More]
AOL Cans 900 A Month After Announcing Huffington Post Buy
By 3.11.11
When AOL decided last month to spend $315 million on Huffington Post, the internet’s eyebrows raised in confusion about how the struggling company could afford such an acquisition. [More]
Sony Closes CD Factory In NJ, 300 Lose Jobs
By 1.14.11
Three hundred people in New Jersey are losing their jobs, and it’s all our fault. Enough consumers prefer to buy digital downloads (when we buy music at all) that Sony is closing down their Pitman, NJ CD factory at the end of March. [More]
MySpace Expected To Lay Off Half Its Employees
By 1.5.11
MySpace employees are bracing for a massive bloodletting on the verge of a possible sale. The troubled social networking site is expected to see its 1,100-strong workforce shrink to half its current size by the middle of the month. [More]
Yahoo: We're Selling Delicious, Not Closing It
By 12.20.10
Yahoo apparently never planned on selling Delicious along with the rest of its under-performing initiatives. Contrary to a leaked slide that indicates Delicious is headed to a “sunset,” along with AltaVista and Buzz, the sunset of Delicious will be one with a possible sunrise to follow. Yahoo wants to sell the site, and it’s ticked at the press for causing people to think any different. [More]
Yahoo Lays Off 600, Plans To Shut Down Buzz, Delicious
By 12.17.10
Several hundred Yahoo employees received the opposite of a Christmas present this week, learning the company is letting them go to ease its payroll burden. In addition to shedding 4 percent of its workforce, the shrinking web giant is shutting down AltaVista, Buzz and Delicious — according to an internal company slide. [More]
Factory That Made Moldy, Barfy Recalled Tylenol Closes For Upgrades, 300 Lose Jobs
By 7.16.10
Johnson & Johnson announced late yesterday that they will lay off most of the employees of the Philadelphia-area factory that produced the controversial musty, stinky pills recalled earlier this year. Staff have been on full pay and benefits since the plant shut down in April, but the controversial (that is: filthy) facility will close down for upgrades until some undefined point in 2011. [More]
Video Professor Gives Employees Free Trial Offer Of Unpaid Furlough
By 5.3.10
Have we learned all we can from Video Professor’s free training discs? (Well, free for 7 days, then $30 every month.) Or did the professor blow all his cash on legal fees in order to bully critics and attack competitors, as techdirt suggests? Either way, the company called all its employees to a meeting last week and gave them an unpaid summer vacation. [More]
