Since my last post mid-month, we’ve seen some acceleration in tech layoffs, and the overall jobs picture continues to look poor. Another 588,000 applied for initial unemployment benefits overall this week, which was worse than experts had forecast. The continuing rise of unemployment claims indicates the recession continues to intensify, and we’ll get a solid picture Friday when gross domestic product (GDP) numbers are released. So, who’s on the chopping block this week? Time Warner has announced it would cut 700 jobs, which would be about 10 percent of its workforce. SAP will be taking a similar route, cutting about 6 percent of its workforce during the year, which would amount to about 6,000 jobs. Sprint Nextel has the deepest cuts that we’ve seen: about 8,000 jobs or 14 percent of its workforce. With the deterioration of the financial position of the consumer, and confidence continuing to fall — there still appears to be no clear end in sight to the downturn, which means companies will continue to layoff at alarming rates well into 2009.
By Ed Oswald | Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 11:24 am