Lockheed Martin is shutting down a plant in Eagan, MN...by 2013. Possibly transferring 650 employees and dropping 350.
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/lockheed-martin-clos...
Ask HN: Who is firing?
21–30 of 37 posts
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably this is RBC? Do you think it has to do with meeting some sort of quarterly budget targets?
The bossman really doesn't like it when I specify, but googling largest bank in Canada will confirm / deny your guess. As I understand it the new CIO got the job based on this plan to keep IT budget down. For this one friend who will be losing his contract early next yr, we can have 8-12 offshore programmers from his contract alone. Sad, but seems to be the trend.
What line of thought lead you to believe saying "Canada's largest bank" is not the same as saying RBC?
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#23Ask.com laid off search engineers within the last month. Limewire had a big judgment against it recently. They have another product in the works, but they may be doing some downsizing. Sorry for the lack of sources. I'll try to come back with them later.
I used to get plenty of phone calls from Limewire hiring in their New Delhi office. After the shutdown, I haven't received a single call.
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#24Ebay had a large lay off at their Shanghai facility a few weeks ago
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#25My mother worked for a subsidiary of a certain $87 billion a year health insurer. They are closing the office she worked at this month and firing [edit: "laying off"] all the employees.
My own understanding of what "firing" meant was termination because, essentially, the employer didn't like the employee anymore, usually because they did something "wrong". Whereas if a batch of employees had to be let go, ostensibly purely for financial reasons, nothing very personal or direct, then they are "laid off", not fired. Every once in a while I hear somebody say fire when I think it was layoff, and it irks…
A "layoff" is (should be) a temporary suspension from work to reduce costs and "termination", well, termination of employment.
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're in the business of concealing responsibility, then by all means, use the word "lay off". Employers like to use "lay off" to imply that it was not the fault of the management team, it's not because they're bad guys, it's just the unfortunate reality. That's partly true, it's partly bullshit, and the fact is that it affects people profoundly, and calling it a "lay-off" doesn't help things. Employees who have…
"lay off" says it is the fault of the management team. "fire" says it is the fault of employee. In the US, the standard is employment at will, which means you can terminate without cause at any time (unless you are actually terminating for a disallowed cause, confusingly), so "terminated for cause" is a small minority of "fired". Of course, within those people who are more or less interchangeable, of course the ones…
A shareholder takes the opposite view, layoffs can be a great thing for a companies bottom line (at least in the short term).
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#27I work for Canada's largest bank and they're turfing contractors at a pretty rapid rate. Shoveling lots of work offshore. Edit: FTE's seem safe for the moment.
This is a trend going through large Canadian businesses right now.
They seem to think that by outsourcing work to overseas mills that they can save money. Sales and support aside, it's the companies that are outsourcing engineering that are really hurting.
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bossman really doesn't like it when I specify, but googling largest bank in Canada will confirm / deny your guess. As I understand it the new CIO got the job based on this plan to keep IT budget down. For this one friend who will be losing his contract early next yr, we can have 8-12 offshore programmers from his contract alone. Sad, but seems to be the trend.
What line of thought lead you to believe saying "Canada's largest bank" is not the same as saying RBC?
None at all. I would prefer not be vague and indirect, but if he asks (and he does now and then since I gave a print interview regarding the G20 activities around our building) I can honestly say I did not name the company.
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#29Nokia laid of people close to Cambridge, UK. We hired a few of them at Citrix.
Re: Ask HN: Who is firing?
#30Ebay had a large lay off at their Shanghai facility a few weeks ago
I guess those people won't be out of work for a long time though. Auctions are booming in China, just not eBay ...