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 January 2016:
After only two years Qatar based news source Al Jazeera is getting the hell outta Dodge! Al Jazeera America is shutting down in April, administrators say that despite increasing numbers of viewers the suck-ass U.S. economy makes doing business in ‘Merica “no longer sustainable”! 7-hundred employees affected!
California: VMWare warning employees of mass layoffs due to their merger with Dell and EMC, as many as 9-hundred jobs lost! But wait there’s a whole lot more! Redwood Shores based Global Equities Research predicts that as many as 333-thousand tech jobs will be eliminated over the next 12 months, no thanks to rapidly developing advancements in areas like cloud computing! Foster City based Live365 internet radio officially shutting down, analysts are blaming the Copyright Royalty Board. Back at the end of December it was reported that Live365 was laying off the majority of its employees, no word on how many people will lose their jobs. In Santa Clara, Florida based software company Citrix Systems eliminated 65 jobs. In San Jose, tech company Cisco Systems laid off 123 people without warning! In San Mateo, GoPro reported it laid off 77 employees, due to holiday sales that fell short by $100-thousand USD. In San Diego, after laying off 1,314 people at the end of 2015 Qualcomm laid off an additional 32 employees. Cupertino based Apple laid off 1-hundred people from its iAd ops! Administrators claim they will create new jobs later on, which is unlikely given that Apple is drastically cutting production of its new iPhones by 30%! This is causing the factory in China to conduct mass layoffs, and forced the city of Zhengzhou to pump $12.6-million USD into the factory to minimize the impact. Apple stocks lost 24% of their value from last year! It turns out that sales of the new Apple iPhones are not as great as what the mainstream news media was reporting! Sunnyvale based Yahoo laid off 25% of its employees (about 2-thousand 7-hundred), because a three year ‘turnaround’ plan has failed to get the intended results! San Francisco based Too Big to Jail Wells Fargo continues to kill jobs, this time 121 tech jobs across the country! It’s been revealed that Wells Fargo is actually covering the bad loans of huge oil companies (by literally throwing money at them), this should piss you off because Wells Fargo (a major mortgage company) does not hesitate to foreclose on homeowners! (Mmmm, is it a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul?). San Francisco based Mixapanel laid off 18 employees admitting that in 2015 they “overhired”. Dating website Zoosk laid off 40 employees. AT&T laid off 102 people in San Ramon!
Colorado: Kansas based Sprint shutting down their Arapahoe County call center, 178 jobs lost by April! Read on to learn of the latest Sprint layoffs in Kansas, New Mexico, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Louisville based non-profit cable TV research company CableLabs laid off 30 people, in order “to ensure that CableLabs can rapidly build and sustain a significant innovation pipeline for the industry”.
Connecticut: Yale University laid off at least 24 InfoTech employees. CIO Len Peters warns of more job cuts saying “In order to further close our budget gap, some involuntary layoffs have taken place. Moving forward, we will continue to look for ways to be more cost-effective and agile with our services.”
Florida: In Lake City, Sitel Operating Corporation issued two WARNs saying 128 people will be laid off between March and April! Despite winning a lawsuit against Japan’s Mitsubishi, Naples based Grail Semiconductor now chapter 11 bankrupt busted saying their debts are far greater than the money they’re supposed to be getting from Mitsubishi.
Idaho: A new study is blaming low Gem State high school graduation rates on internet classes! The state Board of Education reported that ‘virtual schools’ can barely graduate 20% of their online students!
Indiana: Emmis Communications warned of layoffs at its radio stations, exact numbers not given.
Kansas: Overland Park based Sprint notified 829 local employees they will lose their jobs very soon! That’s on top of the 6-thousand Sprint jobs eliminated in the past two years!
Kentucky: ISO copper wire maker Belden shutting down their factory in Monticello, 260 jobs being lost to the state of Indiana and to the country of Mexico, between now and the beginning of next year!
Nevada: A third solar power panel company is getting the hell outta The Silver State (after anti solar panel regs were passed, which actually penalize homeowners for installing them). Go Solar, a Las Vegas based company, is laying off 17 people and reducing hours for the rest of their employees. Scott Shaw, a Go Solar exec, says that since the new anti-solar panel regulations were announced “We’ve gone from five installations a week to zero!” Between Go Solar, SunRun and SolarCity the new anti-solar panel regulations will cause Nevada to lose about 2-thousand jobs!
New Mexico: Kansas based Sprint shutdown their Rio Rancho call center, 394 jobs lost!
New York: Armonk based International Business Machines (IBM) is about to conduct mass layoffs, insiders saying “…a resource action will happen…”. On top of that the iconic employer will reduce the amount of severance it normally gives. If you research my past Job Losses reports you’ll discover that IBM has been conducting mass layoffs for several years now. NYC based MTV laid off an undisclosed number of people, as reported by those who were laid off. Internet fantasy sports site FanFuel revealed they’ve begun laying off employees, no numbers given. It’s connected to legal threats challenging FanDuel’s claim that it’s not a gambling site. Months after announcing plans to hire 125 people, Dial America now shutdown its 28 years old Amherst call center, 120 jobs lost! Administrators blamed it on a major client deciding to do business with a foreign call center operator! Jefferson County shutdown their DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) office on Fort Drum, blaming a shift to internet operations. NYC based door-to-door “women’s” products seller Avon announced it will eliminate in-house InfoTech jobs, contracting them out to failed California based tech company Hewlett Packard (HP). NYC based website Upworthy laid off 14 people connected to internet video trends.
North Carolina: Sitel Operating Corporation shutting down its Asheville call center, 250 jobs lost by July! Ohio based call center operator Convergys issued a layoff WARN for its Greenville center, 163 jobs lost by April due to the loss of a contract!
Ohio: Digital Works shutdown their high-tech skills training programs in Logan, Lynchburg, Middleport, Portsmouth and West Union. The training program was started in 2013 with taxpayer funding, that taxpayer funding ended in 2015. After four years virtual telemedicine health provider connector HealthSpot now chapter 7 bankrupt busted and being liquidated. The plan was to set up remote kiosks in which people could access medical coverage help under this ObamaCare regime. However, despite raising $48-million USD and building 191 kiosks, 137 of those kiosks are still sitting in storage unused! The other 54 kiosks that were set up in retail locations, like RiteAid, are not in use. Researchers at Ohio State University have proven that an ‘Amazon Tax’ killed internet holiday sales in 2015. They determined that sales on Amazon.com dropped an average of 8.3% in states that implemented taxes on internet purchases. The Washington Post article said sales declines increased as the price of the item went up: “The Amazon Tax had an especially chilling effect on big-ticket purchases that totaled more than $250, the study found. On these transactions, Amazon sales declined 11.4 percent once the tax was put in place.”
Puerto Rico: Video game store GameStop shutdown all 40+ island stores (according to GameStop PR director Joy Mooring, other reports said 35 stores), more than 4-hundred jobs lost! It’s blamed on government regulations and the suck-ass economy in the defaulted U.S. territory!
Rhode Island: A state investigation into former Major League Baseball player Curt Schilling’s video game company 38 Studios could result in a criminal case. 38 Studios went mysteriously bankrupt and shutdown a few months after releasing it’s only video game (the game was considered a success and sold well). The problem is that 38 Studios was partially funded with millions in state taxpayer loans, which were never paid back.
Tennessee: Kansas based Sprint shutdown their Blountville call center, 444 jobs lost!
Texas: Sprint shutdown their Temple call center, 350 jobs lost!
Virginia: Sprint shutdown their Hampton call center, 380 jobs lost! In Roanoke, WDBJ television station was sold-off. WDBJ is the TV station that saw two reporters killed, by a former employee, live on TV. The once Indiana owned WDBJ is now owned by a company out of Georgia. As a former local TV news producer I can tell you that TV station takeovers always involve people losing their jobs.
Washington: In Bremerton, Concentrix shutdown their call center, 5-hundred jobs lost! Administrators blame it on the loss of a major client.
Washington DC: NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is consolidating operations at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana, possibly eliminating more than 2-hundred jobs in the process!
WARN=Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification
Former employees who receive severance are not counted as unemployed
1ST Q 2015: “THE LINES ARE BECOMING BLURRED….CONVERGING AT A FASTER PACE THAN ANYONE PREDICTED.”