Everywhere I turn at the moment there is more and more talk of job losses! it does not seem to matter what your industry is jobs are disappearing quicker that most news rooms can report on them. A quick round up:
- Citigroup 50,000 worldwide after four quarters of heavy losses.
- BHP Billiton looks like it will have to lay off 25% of it’s Kambalda workforce following Consolidated Metals sacking 180 of it’s 200 plus workforce.
- ANZ Bank is rumoured to be about to lay off 1,000 middle management roles.
- Sun Microsystems looks like shedding 5,000-6,000 workers globally to keep investors happy, about 15% of it’s workforce. Note this is their 8th restructure and the company shares are at their lowest level in 14 year. Titanic anyone?
- NAB cuts 180 more IT workers on top of the 260 already revealed.
- HP is cutting several hundred workers following its takeover of EDS.
- Fairfax is slashing hundreds of jobs, while giving the CEO a 24% pay rise!
- Even the Government looks to be taking out the axe, 4,000 jobs in the NSW public sector
- Optus took out 400 jobs in October.
- Telstra is cutting 800 jobs while integrating BigPond into it’s main operations.
- Pacific Internet, now known as PacNet offshores 22 jobs.
The average job line might soon look like this.
Not only are jobs being lost but at the end of October it was estimated that $1 billion per day was being lost from our retirement savings.
But wait all is not doom and gloom, if you are a CEO your salary rose by 96% in the last six years vs the workers you are now sacking their pay packet only went up by an average of 32%. The average CEO now makes around $5 million per annum or $96,000 per week. In other positive news Indian outsourcer Tata is still hiring about 100 people a year.
How inspiring! Time for a coffee, or maybe a stiff drink!
Unfortunately things may get a lot worse before they get better. I’m not sure if you are aware but about 50% of all car dealerships in Australia have to find new finance for their floor stock before Dec 31, due to GE and GMAC pulling out of the Australian market. Without replacement finance most of these dealerships will have to close their doors. Potential job losses – circa 40,000 nationally.
It’s also looking like GM itself may go belly up unless they get government support (in the US). The ramifications of that don’t bear thinking about.
There is of course the Republican view that dinosaurs like GM should be allowed to fail and propping them up is only delaying the inevitable. Likewise here in Australia, I have heard one view that we’re not going to need all those car dealerships next year .
It’s important to remember that life still goes on, even in a recession 🙂