There's Something in the Air....Lay Offs Everywhere

I noticed a lot of threads on here along with people I talk to are experiencing company wide lay offs where they're employed. The stock market is going crazy right now as well. Even my employer is going through some changes this year that they can't talk to us about yet.

I'm not sure if I should sit tight and ride this wave out or start prepping for the worst. Was anyone else noticing this trend this year as well or is it just me being on edge?

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CyberSecurity

I haven't noticed any change on the DoD/DHS side for private contracting-companies. We're actually hiring quite a bit. Could be because we're not a publicly traded co.

If you have the opportunity to jump into something better then it's really a matter of if the benefits outweigh the cost/risk. I've jumped 3 times in 2 years for better salary and benefits however now I wish I would of taken the gov't job when it was offered instead of having to compete for it now because I decided to wait it out.

NetworkNewb

Haven't noticed much here in MN, could be a region thing though... I know oil companies have been having a harder time with gas prices dropping lately. Maybe that effects Texas' economy more than other states? I know a company here in the midwest has been having to layoff people in North Dakota because of this.

Not sure if this has a great effect on IT but I'm sure it all ties together a little bit. Then again, I have no idea and just throwing ideas out there...

Params7

According to Goldman Sachs, low oil prices is going to have a net negative cost on U.S. economy (the low gas price isn't enough to offset the loss in jobs).

SaSkiller

Always be ready. Have a year of savings and whatever certs are hot in your field. Then you have less to worry about no matter what happens.

There is some stuff going on because many of the major DoD contractors subagencies have been bought out. Each company will likely have policies on who will be dropped. Likely people not on contracts.

E Double U

I always prepare for the worst no matter what is happening in the world.

NetworkNewb

Params7 wrote: »

According to Goldman Sachs, low oil prices is going to have a net negative cost on U.S. economy (the low gas price isn't enough to offset the loss in jobs).

Right, but they are directly related. Family member works at one of those companies that are laying people off. Gave me a 30 minute speech the other day about how it is related. There is something with Saudi Arabia right now cutting prices on oil barrels by alot which is cutting the demand on oil production here. Which is why gas prices are so low here right now. They tell me everytime they see gas prices go down how it sucks for their company.

dustervoice

High oil price is bad; Low oil price is bad!

tedjames

I see you're in Austin. There's a lot of work in Texas state, city, and county government. I survived several layoffs during my time at Motorola throughout the '90s, but then they hit me in the first round of layoffs in 2001. In January 2001, they told us that more layoffs might be coming as early as the end of February. The layoffs actually started in mid-February. After a lot of searching with no success, I started looking at state jobs and never looked back. Sure, the pay is lower, but there's a lot more job security.

NetworkNewb

dustervoice wrote: »

High oil price is bad; Low oil price is bad!

right... lol

stlsmoore

NetworkNewb wrote: »

Haven't noticed much here in MN, could be a region thing though... I know oil companies have been having a harder time with gas prices dropping lately. Maybe that effects Texas' economy more than other states? I know a company here in the midwest has been having to layoff people in North Dakota because of this.

Not sure if this has a great effect on IT but I'm sure it all ties together a little bit. Then again, I have no idea and just throwing ideas out there...

Good info, I forgot to mention that I'm a remote employee with no offices here in Texas. Our HQ is located in London and we're involved with making widgets within the tech sector. We are a public company though so that may be why I'm hearing all this noise from my colleagues.

gespenstern

Private company in Chicago, no visible signs of anything major. But the stock market, yeah, kind of heading low since the end of Dec. 2015. Not exactly crazy like it was in the past, but yeah.

jeremywatts2005

Sprint just announced 2500 people are going to be laid off due to restructuring. What we are all forgetting is that the unemployment number is not a correct number. The calculation excludes, underemployed, dropped out of the workforce, disabled and so on. We are much higher than 5%. Really we are way over 10% right now and some have said as high as 60% are underemployed, dropped out or disabled currently. All depends on how you do the calculation but even Bernie who I want nothing to do with believes it is at least 10% (Bernie Sanders Says 'Real' Unemployment Rate Is Actually 10.5 Percent | The Daily Caller) which is double what the administration put out. Trump, Forbes and others are estimating 30% or higher if you take everything into consideration. This is why lower gas prices that puts more out of work will drive the economy down even more. Things are not as good as what the media is telling us.

Take a trip to the Midwest and you will see what I mean. I just went to southern Iowa and Northern Missouri. There you have a near collapse of the entire economy. If you took the cars out of the driveway you could have taken a picture and told someone it was 75 yrs ago and they would have believed you. No growth no building and no jobs. All of the manufacturing is shut down and so has most of the healthcare. You barely have a grocery store. Things are bad and that is one reason I am avoiding doing any more contracts. Layoffs are going to be widespread if it continues.

Reminds me almost of what happened after 9/11 happened I was working in telecom and my companies service division shut down and there were nearly 10K of us laid off. They stopped manufacturing and servicing the equipment. I was unemployed for a year looking for work. Companies are skittish and the profits are slim so it is time to cut workers.

Anonymouse

I was laid off from a tech company in Silicon Valley last summer. I think it was mostly related to bad spending decisions internally. My manager had given me a three week notice of layoff so I was able to get a job lined up before my last day. Last day Friday, started new job Monday.

Mike R

From what I've read the layoffs in Texas are due to oil/gas prices. However that is mainly middle management and people who work on new projects which are on hold. I believe the last report I saw said 2/3rds of the oil rigs in the gulf are sitting idle. I'll be moving into the Houston area this spring so I've been keeping a watchful eye on the job market and from what I'm seeing the IT jobs market is strong as ever. Also Exxon/Mobil built a campus on the north side and they are constantly adding jobs and buildings.

I really don't see a slowdown in the IT jobs market. Every day we are getting more and more connected and tech is advancing so someone has to maintain and trouble shoot it. A report my brother told me about listed IT as the hottest job in 2016, granted IT is a huge field. I think the main thing is to be versatile in the field and not be limited to one aspect of it.

Mooseboost

I feel pretty stable at my company. We are a small company though, so that may be different than working for a larger scale company. It was the same way at my old company. I've never worked at a large company, so I don't know if it is a different feeling there.

JockVSJock

I try not to read the mainstream news, its all negative. I'm waiting for the bottom to fall out of the barrel. However I've been following some of the drama of the US presidential race and the Davos Economic Summit.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/01/gary-north/new-world-order-intensive-care/

This post caught my eye and doesn't surprise me since alot of the events listed below continue to feed into the economic chaos.

- The banks that got bailed out in 2008, all posted warnings back in the summer 2015, or earlier that the economy is in the twilight zone and uncharted waters

- The economy never really has recovered from 2008 (Fractional Banking and Keynesian Economics isn't designed to work for the masses)

- Oil being used as an economic weapon by the US, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia. Who can pump enough and **** enough on the world market to undermine their competitors, without realizing possible implications.

- Monitoring news out of the Davos Conference and they realize that Globalism and 'Free Trade' isn't working. With wages stagnate, and the economy depend on consumer consumption, how can they go out and shop if they don't make a living wage to afford products like iPhone? Henry Ford knew this and paid his workers a living wage so they could afford to buy his products

- Out of all of this economic chaos is the rise of Populism candidates (Trump and Sanders in the US and others in Europe) who claim to reject Globalism, superstates like the North American Union and European Union and 'Free Trade'

- AI/Robotics is going to be another game changer. Coming down hot and heavy and will leave the more of the population unemployed

- The worst is yet to come...

Verities

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is going through scores of layoffs. They're starting to revert back to sub contractors for government contracts. People are dropping like flies around our office. Its incredible that HPE is taking on more contracts and cutting people left and right. We constantly receive emails about how awesome their sales are and how well they're doing but the stockholders and Meg just don't understand that it does take people to actually provides things like managed services.

HP to cut another 25,000 to 30,000 jobs - Sep. 15, 2015

HP layoffs hit on Monday, more to come - Business Insider

Another instance of corporate greed aka "the bottom line"

Verities

I found a thread on reddit that correlates with what I talked about before:

"Companies realized that it's an employer's market. When people were laid off in 2008 everyone that kept their jobs started working harder so they wouldn't lose them. Companies realized they can just scare their employees into doing the work of two people and there's nothing you can do about it.Then the companies took all that cheap money and made more for the executives but it never trickled down other than the fact that you got to keep your job. It's another bubble so to speak.
Now companies are experimenting with just how much they can take away from the employees before they drive too many away. This is one reason the concept of the union was a good thing.
Basically what you're seeing is the wealthy exhibiting short term foresight. A healthy middle class would likely make them more money in the long run, but they are too busy living large to care.
It's one thing to build a business and work hard to become rich. It's nother to nickle and dime your employees with the attitude of if they don't like it they can leave."

--Warjackprime

Source:

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42lz20/eli5_why_is_everyone_still_feeling_the_effects_of/

thomas_

Verities wrote: »

This is one reason the concept of the union was a good thing.

I was talking to an electrician on a job site the other day and the topics of unions came up. He mentioned that his buddy was a electrician that owned his own company. Apparently, union electricians approached him and said that if he did anymore work in "union territory" that he would start to find his tools missing on job sites and they were going to make his life miserable in general.

Apparently, he called the cops to file a report for the union members attempting to extort him and the police refused to do anything saying that it was just "union matters".

I don't think unions are a good thing when they can push people around who aren't union members and have law enforcement look the other way.

gncsmith

VMWARE is laying off too.

https://www.thelayoff.com/vmware

Params7

NetworkNewb wrote: »

Right, but they are directly related. Family member works at one of those companies that are laying people off. Gave me a 30 minute speech the other day about how it is related. There is something with Saudi Arabia right now cutting prices on oil barrels by alot which is cutting the demand on oil production here. Which is why gas prices are so low here right now. They tell me everytime they see gas prices go down how it sucks for their company.

True. When U.S. struck black gold (oil) with shale fracking, it started undermining Saudi (OPEC) influence on setting prices for oil. Thing is it is a lot more expensive for U.S. oil companies to extract oil via fracking than it is for Saudi Arabia to drill their crude oil, so they can effectively sell at lower cost and still make profits. U.S. oil companies need oil to sell at around $70/barrel to make money, Saudi and some other Gulf states can go as low as $20-30/barrel. Saudi is just waiting for U.S. oil companies to wrap up and shut down. Also, they don't like Iran at all and Iran will start exporting oil very soon thanks to lifted sanctions, so prices will just keep going lower as competition enrages between the two. It sucks for U.S. oil companies, but sucks even more for countries like Canada, Russia, etc who have economies dependent more on oil exports than U.S. Eventually though we live in globalized world with tied economies, where if one falls down, the ripple effects get us all.

bigdogz

In the Telco / MISP arena we have had layoffs every year for the last 6 years.

I have also seen that there are more layoffs in my region by other organizations. We have also noticed that our customers are cutting back as well. I would rather not talk politics but just tell people to be prepared.

Remedymp

Our company is involved in the largest IT merger in history. We expect lay off for the next 2-3 years.

gespenstern

thomas_ wrote: »

I don't think unions are a good thing when they can push people around who aren't union members and have law enforcement look the other way.

Agreed. Unions are some socialist stuff that ruined american automotive industry.

Verities

thomas_ wrote: »

I was talking to an electrician on a job site the other day and the topics of unions came up. He mentioned that his buddy was a electrician that owned his own company. Apparently, union electricians approached him and said that if he did anymore work in "union territory" that he would start to find his tools missing on job sites and they were going to make his life miserable in general.

Apparently, he called the cops to file a report for the union members attempting to extort him and the police refused to do anything saying that it was just "union matters".

I don't think unions are a good thing when they can push people around who aren't union members and have law enforcement look the other way.

Initially I referenced a quote from someone and it was about helping protect jobs for unionized workers. Shaking down an independent business owner is another story.

v1ral

Remedymp wrote: »

Our company is involved in the largest IT merger in history. We expect lay off for the next 2-3 years.

You work for EMC or Dell? I Used to work at EMC, most of my coworkers have left or are planning on leaving.

tpatt100

Saudi Arabia pumping extra oil is also related to ISIS who is selling Syrian oil to fund terrorist activities but also to help stabilize their currency issues. ISIS has taken pay cuts due to oil prices as well as their oil transports getting blown up by US (and other) forces

China's playing with the value of their currency to make outsourcing manufacturing even more attractive with their drop in labor costs.

5 Things to Know About China’s Currency Devaluation - WSJ

Matt2

There goes Staples, corporate layoffs in addition to the multitude of store closures Staples lays off hundreds of employees

gncsmith

Nice blog post about the VMware layoffs for the Workstation, Fusion, and Hosted UI teams. Link

UnixGuy

We should all go back to what we're meant to be doing; being craftsmen and/or innovating inventors - rather than pushing buttons and watching green LEDs.