6 ms·

Ask HN: Who is firing?

64 points by startupdude 16y ago

Though there are lot of companies hiring compared to year before, there are bunch of companies firing as well.

phrotoma 16y ago
I work for Canada's largest bank and they're turfing contractors at a pretty rapid rate. Shoveling lots of work offshore. Edit: FTE's seem safe for the moment.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Isn't this exactly what contractors are for?
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    Yes but they are "too expensive". We like our contractors to be willing to work for $20/hour not $120/hour.
- tamersalama 16y ago
  This is the exact same plan for 3 major Canadian oil-n-gas I know. Details are unfolding, but many will be affected. Basically, individual contractors are to be replaced by fewer BigName companies with work done overseas. Edit: details
  - dasil003 16y ago
    I look forward to hearing how that turned out for them.
    - tamersalama 16y ago
      In the works - will shed some light as things go public
- waterside81 16y ago
  Presumably this is RBC? Do you think it has to do with meeting some sort of quarterly budget targets?
  - phrotoma 16y ago
    The bossman really doesn't like it when I specify, but googling largest bank in Canada will confirm / deny your guess. As I understand it the new CIO got the job based on this plan to keep IT budget down. For this one friend who will be losing his contract early next yr, we can have 8-12 offshore programmers from his contract alone. Sad, but seems to be the trend.
    - switch007 16y ago
      What line of thought lead you to believe saying "Canada's largest bank" is not the same as saying RBC?
      - phrotoma 16y ago
        None at all. I would prefer not be vague and indirect, but if he asks (and he does now and then since I gave a print interview regarding the G20 activities around our building) I can honestly say I did not name the company.
- RBr 16y ago
  This is a trend going through large Canadian businesses right now. They seem to think that by outsourcing work to overseas mills that they can save money. Sales and support aside, it's the companies that are outsourcing engineering that are really hurting.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    I'm not sure I agree with this. I work for a "global organization", and the people we hire in the US are just as incompetent as the people we hire in India. (We have good people in all the locations too, of course... but living in the US or UK or Canada does not mean you are going to do a good job.) I love it when someone emails support and gets an answer like "plz read wiki"... and then you realize the person that wrote that is a white dude from Chicago that speaks no languages other than English. I can forgive lazy writing if English is not your first language. But if it's your only language, please spell please correctly and use "the" when appropriate. A complete sentence would also be nice. But I digress.
    - bmelton 16y ago
      The outsourcing of activities generally has less to do with quality than with cost. Of course, the cost is relative too. A company I used to work for outsourced a large chunk of the work force to Poland. Poland was chosen because they were technically sound, generally, spoke above-average intelligible English and, most importantly, valued the American dollar about 6 times more than we do. This meant, generally, that they could hire 6 Polish workers for every American worker we laid off (if you ignore the fact that many of the American workers were longer in the tooth, and hence higher on the salary scale, which made it even more profitable a deal.) The main worry about moving somewhere with an economy that isn't horribly weak is that as our American dollars infuse their economy, and more Polish outsourcing companies are stood up to attract more American dollars, we inflate their economy. The cost of living goes up, the value of our dollar becomes less strong, and the benefits to having moved work there becomes less appealing. This could well lead to a tipping point when American companies pull out, which I worry could 'burst the bubble' and leave Krakow Poland in worse shape than if we'd never been there.
dangrossman 16y ago
My mother worked for a subsidiary of a certain $87 billion a year health insurer. They are closing the office she worked at this month and firing [edit: "laying off"] all the employees.
- MrFoof 16y ago
  Assuming who I think it is, your mom isn't the only one. A lot of their subsidiaries are being sold off. I'm assuming less attractive ones are being shut down if they can't find buyers. I'm consulting for a firm that has bought one of their subsidiaries as a new business unit. Much of it has to be done before the end of the year, per the US government. Haven't dug into why that is the case just yet, but I'm aware of much going on with said health insurer.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  My own understanding of what "firing" meant was termination because, essentially, the employer didn't like the employee anymore, usually because they did something "wrong". Whereas if a batch of employees had to be let go, ostensibly purely for financial reasons, nothing very personal or direct, then they are "laid off", not fired. Every once in a while I hear somebody say fire when I think it was layoff, and it irks me a little. Firing generally means "you suck" whereas laying off means "we suck" or "the economy sucks". I hope that's how we collectively use those terms anyway. Because if we instead use them to mean the same thing, it's a waste of words. A distinction without a difference. (Not criticizing what you said directly, just reacting to that term.)
  - jholman 16y ago
    If you're in the business of concealing responsibility, then by all means, use the word "lay off". Employers like to use "lay off" to imply that it was not the fault of the management team, it's not because they're bad guys, it's just the unfortunate reality. That's partly true, it's partly bullshit, and the fact is that it affects people profoundly, and calling it a "lay-off" doesn't help things. Employees who have been terminated like to use "lay off" to imply that it wasn't their fault, to avoid impacting their hireability. But if the ex-employee had been a net asset, they wouldn't be laying that ex-employee off, unless they were liquidating the entire company. In practice, lean times give management, whether soft-hearted or black-hearted, an opportunity to make hard calls, in the equityholders' favour, at the expense of the employees. You can like that, hate that, whatever. I prefer to eschew both "lay off" and "fire", and use the word "terminate", as in "one employee was terminated yesterday, and two thousand were terminated at some point last month". I do this in the hopes of being starkly clear about the simple fact of the termination, and avoiding the sugar coat. You can also use "terminated with cause", which is a legal distinction in some jurisdictions, and I think it's an interesting one. Oh, but... if I wanted to start a thread that contrasts threads called "who's hiring", then I'd be clever and rhyme and call my thread "who's firing". And if I were responding to that thread, I'd use the word in the topic question. And I wouldn't whip out the pedantry unless someone else did it first. end-of-rant
rradu 16y ago
Yahoo. Right before the holidays, too. Guess they want to avoid paying bonuses to soon-to-be goners. http://kara.allthingsd.com/20101130/yahoo-layoffs-coming-december-13-and-not-this-week-though-its-still-bad-news/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20101130/yahoo-layoffs-coming-dec...
davidu 16y ago
Maybe you mean layoffs... Every company should be ready to do a firing if it's required that the employee and the company part ways.
- catch23 16y ago
  I'm guessing the title name was meant to complement the usual "Who's Hiring" posts that show up every month or so.
nathanh 16y ago
Ask.com laid off search engineers within the last month. Limewire had a big judgment against it recently. They have another product in the works, but they may be doing some downsizing. Sorry for the lack of sources. I'll try to come back with them later.
- gauravgupta 16y ago
  I used to get plenty of phone calls from Limewire hiring in their New Delhi office. After the shutdown, I haven't received a single call.
nowarninglabel 16y ago
Comcast has been laying off people (learned about it through a friend who was laid off from Comcast). Not much media on it, but I believe the layoffs are part of this: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=200690&site=lr_cable&f_src=lightreading_gnews http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=200690&s...
karthikm 16y ago
Bank of America had a round of layoffs today
Pyrodogg 16y ago
Lockheed Martin is shutting down a plant in Eagan, MN...by 2013. Possibly transferring 650 employees and dropping 350. http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/lockheed-martin-closing-twin-cities-plant-nov-18-2010 http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/lockheed-martin-clos...
marco_salvatori 16y ago
Ebay had a large lay off at their Shanghai facility a few weeks ago
- c1sc0 16y ago
  I guess those people won't be out of work for a long time though. Auctions are booming in China, just not eBay ...
eru 16y ago
Nokia laid of people close to Cambridge, UK. We hired a few of them at Citrix.
gcheong 16y ago
For California, you can often find out who's having layoffs by looking at the WARN notices: http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/layoff_services_warn.htm#ListingofWARNNotices http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/layoff_services_warn... I imagine other states have their own listings as well.
kingofspain 16y ago
I just got laid off. Boss said he couldn't afford my £25k pa. When I pointed out I'm on £18k he was initially shocked but still unable to afford it :(

64 points by startupdude 16y ago

Though there are lot of companies hiring compared to year before, there are bunch of companies firing as well.

I work for Canada's largest bank and they're turfing contractors at a pretty rapid rate. Shoveling lots of work offshore. Edit: FTE's seem safe for the moment.

jrockway 16y ago
Isn't this exactly what contractors are for?
- rdtsc 16y ago
  Yes but they are "too expensive". We like our contractors to be willing to work for $20/hour not $120/hour.
tamersalama 16y ago
This is the exact same plan for 3 major Canadian oil-n-gas I know. Details are unfolding, but many will be affected. Basically, individual contractors are to be replaced by fewer BigName companies with work done overseas. Edit: details
- dasil003 16y ago
  I look forward to hearing how that turned out for them.
  - tamersalama 16y ago
    In the works - will shed some light as things go public
waterside81 16y ago
Presumably this is RBC? Do you think it has to do with meeting some sort of quarterly budget targets?
- phrotoma 16y ago
  The bossman really doesn't like it when I specify, but googling largest bank in Canada will confirm / deny your guess. As I understand it the new CIO got the job based on this plan to keep IT budget down. For this one friend who will be losing his contract early next yr, we can have 8-12 offshore programmers from his contract alone. Sad, but seems to be the trend.
  - switch007 16y ago
    What line of thought lead you to believe saying "Canada's largest bank" is not the same as saying RBC?
    - phrotoma 16y ago
      None at all. I would prefer not be vague and indirect, but if he asks (and he does now and then since I gave a print interview regarding the G20 activities around our building) I can honestly say I did not name the company.
RBr 16y ago
This is a trend going through large Canadian businesses right now. They seem to think that by outsourcing work to overseas mills that they can save money. Sales and support aside, it's the companies that are outsourcing engineering that are really hurting.
- jrockway 16y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with this. I work for a "global organization", and the people we hire in the US are just as incompetent as the people we hire in India. (We have good people in all the locations too, of course... but living in the US or UK or Canada does not mean you are going to do a good job.) I love it when someone emails support and gets an answer like "plz read wiki"... and then you realize the person that wrote that is a white dude from Chicago that speaks no languages other than English. I can forgive lazy writing if English is not your first language. But if it's your only language, please spell please correctly and use "the" when appropriate. A complete sentence would also be nice. But I digress.
  - bmelton 16y ago
    The outsourcing of activities generally has less to do with quality than with cost. Of course, the cost is relative too. A company I used to work for outsourced a large chunk of the work force to Poland. Poland was chosen because they were technically sound, generally, spoke above-average intelligible English and, most importantly, valued the American dollar about 6 times more than we do. This meant, generally, that they could hire 6 Polish workers for every American worker we laid off (if you ignore the fact that many of the American workers were longer in the tooth, and hence higher on the salary scale, which made it even more profitable a deal.) The main worry about moving somewhere with an economy that isn't horribly weak is that as our American dollars infuse their economy, and more Polish outsourcing companies are stood up to attract more American dollars, we inflate their economy. The cost of living goes up, the value of our dollar becomes less strong, and the benefits to having moved work there becomes less appealing. This could well lead to a tipping point when American companies pull out, which I worry could 'burst the bubble' and leave Krakow Poland in worse shape than if we'd never been there.

dangrossman 16y ago

My mother worked for a subsidiary of a certain $87 billion a year health insurer. They are closing the office she worked at this month and firing [edit: "laying off"] all the employees.

MrFoof 16y ago
Assuming who I think it is, your mom isn't the only one. A lot of their subsidiaries are being sold off. I'm assuming less attractive ones are being shut down if they can't find buyers. I'm consulting for a firm that has bought one of their subsidiaries as a new business unit. Much of it has to be done before the end of the year, per the US government. Haven't dug into why that is the case just yet, but I'm aware of much going on with said health insurer.
mkramlich 16y ago
My own understanding of what "firing" meant was termination because, essentially, the employer didn't like the employee anymore, usually because they did something "wrong". Whereas if a batch of employees had to be let go, ostensibly purely for financial reasons, nothing very personal or direct, then they are "laid off", not fired. Every once in a while I hear somebody say fire when I think it was layoff, and it irks me a little. Firing generally means "you suck" whereas laying off means "we suck" or "the economy sucks". I hope that's how we collectively use those terms anyway. Because if we instead use them to mean the same thing, it's a waste of words. A distinction without a difference. (Not criticizing what you said directly, just reacting to that term.)
- jholman 16y ago
  If you're in the business of concealing responsibility, then by all means, use the word "lay off". Employers like to use "lay off" to imply that it was not the fault of the management team, it's not because they're bad guys, it's just the unfortunate reality. That's partly true, it's partly bullshit, and the fact is that it affects people profoundly, and calling it a "lay-off" doesn't help things. Employees who have been terminated like to use "lay off" to imply that it wasn't their fault, to avoid impacting their hireability. But if the ex-employee had been a net asset, they wouldn't be laying that ex-employee off, unless they were liquidating the entire company. In practice, lean times give management, whether soft-hearted or black-hearted, an opportunity to make hard calls, in the equityholders' favour, at the expense of the employees. You can like that, hate that, whatever. I prefer to eschew both "lay off" and "fire", and use the word "terminate", as in "one employee was terminated yesterday, and two thousand were terminated at some point last month". I do this in the hopes of being starkly clear about the simple fact of the termination, and avoiding the sugar coat. You can also use "terminated with cause", which is a legal distinction in some jurisdictions, and I think it's an interesting one. Oh, but... if I wanted to start a thread that contrasts threads called "who's hiring", then I'd be clever and rhyme and call my thread "who's firing". And if I were responding to that thread, I'd use the word in the topic question. And I wouldn't whip out the pedantry unless someone else did it first. end-of-rant

rradu 16y ago

Yahoo. Right before the holidays, too. Guess they want to avoid paying bonuses to soon-to-be goners. http://kara.allthingsd.com/20101130/yahoo-layoffs-coming-december-13-and-not-this-week-though-its-still-bad-news/ http://kara.allthingsd.com/20101130/yahoo-layoffs-coming-dec...

davidu 16y ago

Maybe you mean layoffs... Every company should be ready to do a firing if it's required that the employee and the company part ways.

catch23 16y ago
I'm guessing the title name was meant to complement the usual "Who's Hiring" posts that show up every month or so.

nathanh 16y ago

Ask.com laid off search engineers within the last month. Limewire had a big judgment against it recently. They have another product in the works, but they may be doing some downsizing. Sorry for the lack of sources. I'll try to come back with them later.

gauravgupta 16y ago
I used to get plenty of phone calls from Limewire hiring in their New Delhi office. After the shutdown, I haven't received a single call.

nowarninglabel 16y ago

Comcast has been laying off people (learned about it through a friend who was laid off from Comcast). Not much media on it, but I believe the layoffs are part of this: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=200690&site=lr_cable&f_src=lightreading_gnews http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=200690&s...

karthikm 16y ago

Bank of America had a round of layoffs today

Pyrodogg 16y ago

Lockheed Martin is shutting down a plant in Eagan, MN...by 2013. Possibly transferring 650 employees and dropping 350. http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/lockheed-martin-closing-twin-cities-plant-nov-18-2010 http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/lockheed-martin-clos...

marco_salvatori 16y ago

Ebay had a large lay off at their Shanghai facility a few weeks ago

c1sc0 16y ago
I guess those people won't be out of work for a long time though. Auctions are booming in China, just not eBay ...

eru 16y ago

Nokia laid of people close to Cambridge, UK. We hired a few of them at Citrix.

gcheong 16y ago

For California, you can often find out who's having layoffs by looking at the WARN notices: http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/layoff_services_warn.htm#ListingofWARNNotices http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/layoff_services_warn... I imagine other states have their own listings as well.

kingofspain 16y ago

I just got laid off. Boss said he couldn't afford my £25k pa. When I pointed out I'm on £18k he was initially shocked but still unable to afford it :(