Friday, February 09, 2007

The telcom industry as Icarus - A couple years ago, my company was (briefly) part of Lucent. Today, the merged Alcatel-Lucent company announced that it's slashing 12,500 jobs. Whew - dodged that bullet.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Luckily, those 12,500 are not part of that robust, booming U.S. economy. Nor are the Sprint workers whose bonuses have been slashed to near-zero (executive bonuses remain untouched)... 5,000 layoffs are soon expected. Nor the wave of layoffs about to hit MTV. Or Kodak increasing their planned firings to 30,000+ (not counting the 23,000 already fired in Wave One). Or Motorola's 3,500 soon to be ex-workers. Or Pfizer cutting 10,000. Or Harley's layoff plans. Or Radio Shack hitting "send" on its e-firings. Or Capitol/Virgin eliminating more than 20% of its workers. Or massive Time Inc. downsizing, or GE's, or IBM's selling its printing division to Japan, or Chinese execs buying Hoover.

That most of these companies are reporting sizeable-to-record profits is incidental, a mere sidebar.

Getting back to the important point, the U.S. economy is going like gangbusters, the employment rate is golden, and any suggestion to the contrary is lefty whining and statistical bunk. People are basically secure and don't feel the need to build nest eggs. Move to North Korea if you think any different!