More proof you brick-n-mortar store owners can’t directly blame the internet/high-tech competition for your demise. Incomplete list of U.S. internet/high-tech/communications job destruction announcements in August 2016:
California: San Francisco based internet ‘ride sharing service’ Uber lost $1.3-billion USD in the first half of 2016! Uber pays its ‘contracted’ drivers a subsidy in order to keep ride fares low, and that’s supposedly what caused Uber’s massive loss. Uber now wants to shift to more dangerous driverless cars. Digital comedy portal Funny or Die shutting down their San Mateo office and eliminating 37 tech jobs. San Jose hit hard, starting with Cisco Systems which suddenly laid off 899 employees, as part of their new plan to eliminate 14-thousand jobs worldwide! Cisco administrators blame crashing sales of computer hardware. Despite signing a contract to update San Jose city lights to L-E-D, Sweden based Ericsson issued a shutdown WARN for their San Jose operations, 435 jobs gone by Halloween! Also in San Jose, computer chip maker Micrel issued a layoff WARN, 195 jobs gone by the end of September! San Jose based solar panel maker SunPower eliminated 1-thousand 2-hundred jobs due to crashing demand for solar power products! SunEdison suddenly laid off 16 people. Possibly due to Tesla’s take-over bid SolarCity eliminating 108 jobs in San Francisco and San Mateo! For some unknown reason state employment administrators finally published the fact that Broadcom and Avago eliminated more than 1-thousand jobs back in March! State employment admin records show Broadcom and Avago gave the state the mass layoff notices back in January! Speaking of Broadcom, they just issued another WARN, this time 50 jobs in San Diego gone by mid-September. It’s been revealed that maker of the new Ghostbusters video game, FireForge (not connected to FireForge Games), went chapter 7 bankrupt busted back in July! Chapter 7 usually means they’re dead. In Milpitas, cyber security company FireEye laying off 80 employees in October, and the new CEO warned of another 4-hundred layoffs at a yet to be determined later date! QLogic laying off 69 employees in Aliso Viejo, by mid-October. In Los Angeles, Xerox laying off 11 people by mid-October. Glendale based Disney Imagineering laid off an undisclosed number of employees: “Walt Disney Imagineering is a project-based organization, and we continually evaluate and adjust our resources to support the design and development of Disney theme parks, resorts and experiences around the globe.”-official vague explanation
Connecticut: France owned Altice USA-Cablevision Systems Corporation/Optimum shutting down a call center and a customer support center, eliminating more than 5-hundred jobs (some reports say 6-hundred) between October and December!
Georgia: Colorado based EchoStar Technologies shutting down their Atlanta metro area operations, 137 jobs lost by October due to “many factors”! Internet based Ditech Financial laid off 80 people in the Atlanta area, and another 1-hundred people will lose their jobs in North Carolina and Texas! Ditech’s parent company, Walter Investments, lost $232-million USD in its 2nd quarter.
Hawaii: Oahu Publications revealed it laid off eight people, there was also news that the owner of the building where Oahu Pubs is HQed has put the building up-for-sale.
Idaho: Idaho National Laboratory (INL) lost its attempt to become the site for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy, or FORGE: “Although our Idaho site was not selected, INL still has the opportunity to participate in the FORGE effort through our role as a member of the University of Utah-led team and in other funded proposals.”-Rob Podgorney, INL geothermal
Iowa: Iowa State University eliminated 30 InfoTech jobs. At the same time, university administrators claim their reorganization of their IT department actually created eight jobs.
Michigan: Dialog Direct (Novo1) shutting down their Grand Rapids call center, 106 jobs gone by mid-October! According to local news reports, in 2014 Dialog Direct was promised $1.5-million USD in taxpayer funded “investments” to establish a call center in Grand Rapids and hire 287 people. There was no explanation in the official WARN as to why they’re shutting it down, or why they hired only 106 people.
Missouri: The Kansas City Star laid off 12 people, local news reports say for the past few months there’s been non-stop layoffs at the struggling newspaper.
Mississippi: Another example of what I call Ripple Effect Layoffs; bankrupt e-Fitness & Wellness shutdown their Biloxi location. The operators blame a payments collection company in Utah for going bust and as a result cutoff funding for e-Fitness.
New Jersey: Japan owned OKI Data Americas eliminating 38 jobs in Mount Laurel by the end of September. In Red Bank, California based Qualcomm Atheros eliminating 76 jobs by the end of September.
New York: New York Life eliminating numerous in-house InfoTech jobs across The Empire State, between November 2016 and April 2017. France based Altice USA laid off 1-hundred people in Bethpage, that’s where Altice took over Cablevision Systems! News reports say news magazine Time Incorporated will eliminate 110 jobs in an attempt to “optimize” growth! Advertiser MDC-KBS eliminated an undisclosed number of jobs while at the same time claimed “we’re growing and hiring too”.
Oregon: Software “localizer” Sykes issued a shutdown WARN for their Eugene ops, 418 jobs lost by the end of October!
Pennsylvania: Thorley Industries-4moms, a company that prides itself on using computers and robots to design and build products for babies, revealed it laid off 53 people back in June.
Texas: Austin based Revolve Solar now chapter 11 bankrupt busted. Interestingly company administrators stated that their financial numbers filed for the bankruptcy were wrong, and that the company was “fine”.
Washington: In Seattle, advertising-analytics company Marchex laid off about 40 employees after a $68-million USD loss in its 2nd quarter. And video game maker Z2 laid off an undisclosed number of marketing and administrative employees, probably in connection with being taken over by two differnet companies last year. Still in Seattle, tech company QuoteWizard suddenly laid off 20 people after spending money on a new office in Colorado, administrators admitted “With such fast growth, we lost some focus…”. Also in Seattle, software company Moz laid off 60 people after a failed attempt to increase its market diversity: “Increasing the breadth of the product suite added a lot of complexity to the business, but didn’t result in the growth we expected.”-Sara Bird, ceo
“WE’LL BE HIRING A TON OF PEOPLE!” SUDDENLY 70-THOUSAND AUTO WORKERS UNEMPLOYED!
U.S. Navy SAYS SOCIAL MEDIA IS NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT!
3RD SELF-DRIVE CRASH FOR TESLA!
July 2016: “IT’S BRUTAL…LIKE STANDING IN A LINE FOR A GUILLOTINE!”
WARN=Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification
Former employees who receive severance are not counted as unemployed