TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
On Wed, 11 Jun 2003, cornellier1 -at- stavanger -dot- oilfield -dot- slb -dot- com (John
Cornellier) wrote:
> 2003-06-11 14:24:59, eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com wrote:
> | Employees are the first to suffer when the market goes down.
> | Layoffs and benefit cuts come before management or shareholders feel
> | any real pain.
> Lots of bluechip stocks - household names - on the NYSE have seen their
> values cut by 50 per cent in the past few years. For shareholders,
> that's pain.
> Yet I don't believe those same companies have cut worker compensation
> by 50 per cent. Or have they?
The relationship isn't that linear, but it does exist.
WorldCom: (according to their own webpages)
Jan 1999: 77000
Today: 58000
In more than a half-dozen different rounds of layoffs, many of those cuts
were given to management in terms of "lose 10% of your personnel budget",
so a disproportionate number of layoffs were people who had been there
longer and were paid more.
> Don't modern tech companies nowadays realize that one of their biggest
> assets is their employees' brains?
The tech sector downsizing strategy seems to weed out from both ends; you
lay off the incompetent people you were already looking for an excuse to
fire, and you lay off the really talented and expensive people because
you know they were going to stop putting up with all the BS and jump ship
eventually anyways.
--
Huey (if I was a Star Trek character, I'd be "one of 19000") Callison
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
